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The theatre director Miyako Dennai III, fat, shrewd and complacent, seated in ceremonial costume and reading from a scroll that he holds open before him. The print is a masterpiece of characterization in every line of the face and hands, and to some it has suggested comparison with certain portraits by Holbein.
Brick red is the ground color of the main part of the costume and on this is a “Long-life” design in white. The remaining portions are in a somewhat faded blue.
Miyako Dennai at the time this print was made—some time in 1794, the exact date will be discussed later—had recently become owner-manager of the Miyako-za or “Capital Theatre.” During the preceding year the Nakamura-za, of which the Miyako-za had been a subsidiary, had closed its doors; and when the owner-manager portrayed in the print raised the last-mentioned house to first rank by an important production there in the eleventh month of 1793, the event was momentous to him personally for the additional reason that in 1633 the first Miyako Dennai had founded the Miyako-za, and now after over 160 years of varied fortunes, it was once again under an entrepreneur of the same name and recognized as one of the three leading theatres of Edo.
Naturally the first part of 1794 was a time of celebration at the theatre. Immediately before Hanaayame Bunroku Soga, the first play treated in this catalogue, there was produced as part of the ceremonies of rejoicing, a special jōruri entitled Kotobuki Miyako No Nishiki, which may be translated as “Long Life to the Splendors of the Capital.” The print obviously is inspired by a similar congratulatory idea, for it shows Miyako Dennai in a dress covered with the Chinese character for Kotobuki, “Long-life.” It may even have intended a punning reference to the play, for the picture itself is certainly a Kotobuki Miyako no nishiki-ye—a brocade-print of Miyako covered with best wishes for long life.
In the four other previously recorded impressions of this rare subject, inscriptions on the scroll which are the same in three out of the four but
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