Signed (right): Gyokuryūtei Shigeharu ga
玉柳亭重春画
Signed (left): Utagawa Kunihiro ga
歌川国広画
Publisher: Tenmaya Kihei
(Marks 536 - seal 21-193)
Related links: Waseda University - left panel; Waseda University - right panel; Japan Arts Council; Hankyu Culture Foundation - right panel; Hankyu Culture Foundation - left panel;
Shigeharu designed right sheet, Kunihiro designed left sheet. This diptych commemorates the debut of the play Keisei Setsugekka at the Kado theater in 1830/1. These two artists collaborated on 6 or 7 works of art in the years 1829-30. This is probably the last of these joint ventures. [This information is taken from Osaka Prints by Dean J. Schwaab, p. 147. This is accompanied by a fairly large color illustration.]
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Please note the awesomely gruesome human skull lying on the ground below the edge of the engawa on the left panel. Rising up from it is a ghostly (gray colored) flame, the symbol used ordinarily to mark things-supernatural in Japanese woodblock prints.
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Literature:
Ikeda Bunko, Kamigata yakusha-e shūsei (Collected Kamigata Actor Prints), vol. 2, Osaka, 1998, no 131.