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Morita Kanya VIII as Yura Hyōgonosuke.
He wears a kimono of light violet, over which is a kamishimo tinted in light tones of blue, rose and green, and lined with pale rose.
This impression, which is the only one in America, has a hand-written inscription giving the name of the actor; it also bears an additional note stating that “afterwards” he called himself Bandō Yasosuke II; and as he did not take this name until 1801 the inscription could not have been written before that date. The print was first reproduced with a number of other inscribed Sharaku prints in a dealer’s advertisement in the first edition of Kurth. A different and somewhat trimmed impression is reproduced in the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, number 309, and again by Rumpf number 59, Noguchi, etc.
Hosoye. Yellow ground. Signed: Tōshūsai Sharaku.
The Art Institute of Chicago (Buckingham Collection).
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