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Ōtani Tokuji as Sodesuke, a yakko or man-servant of a samurai.
The outer kimono is purple with a dull yellow lining; the under kimono, now faded, apparently once was light blue. The sword scabbard is a strong rose, with the tassel and wrappings in the same color as that of the under kimono. The tonsure is pale blue.
There seem to be two states of this print which show at least one difference so marked and so peculiar that with the print chosen from seven in America we would have shown, if we could have found it, an impression or even a modern reproduction of the state which Rumpf rephotographs as his number 20, from the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, number 262. In that impression what appears to be a triangular tuft of black hair sticks up above the left side of the actor’s partially shaven head, alone and irrelevant. It does not improve the composition, and the quite usual hair arrangement shown in the normal state of the print is complete without it. The color scheme as reported by Rumpf is also quite different from that of all the impressions we have seen.
A duplicate of the state shown by us, which is in a Tokyo collection and is reproduced by Kurth, has one of those hand-written date inscriptions of the ninth month of 1794 to which frequent reference has been made. Among others that are like the one we show and like the rest of those in America, may be mentioned one reproduced in the large Moslé Catalogue as plate number 183. We cannot explain the state reproduced in the Vignier-Inada Catalogue and rephotographed from it by Rumpf and others who take their illustrations from it, but not having seen the original we hesitate to express doubt of its authenticity.
Ōban. Dark mica ground. Signed: Tōshūsai Sharaku.
The Art Institute of Chicago (Buckingham Collection).
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