30
Ichikawa Omezō as Tomita Hyōtarō. The original play-bill shows him carrying his lantern as he approaches the place where his father has just been killed.
We find another representation of the same character in less formal attire in number 32.
In the present print the actor is dressed in a pale violet kimono with a hakama or divided skirt of dark yellow-green. The tonsure once was blue. The lantern, sandals and other appurtenances are yellow.
Impressions of prints by Sharaku in the narrow hosoye form are considerably more scarce than those of his ōban, single figure bust-portraits, and we would call attention to the fact that those which record scenes from the production at the Kawarazaki-za in the seventh month of 1794 are about the rarest of them all. Not one of them is known to exist in more than two impressions and some seem to have survived in one alone.
The print we exhibit is the only impression known of this subject and is reproduced by Rumpf as his number 68. It is trimmed at the left, and the signature which reads merely Tōshūsai is so placed that the remaining characters of the usual signature could not have followed vertically below those that are seen. Presumably they appeared on the part that has been cut off.
Hosoye. Gray ground. Signed as described above.
The Art Institute of Chicago (Buckingham Collection).
122
