Utagawa Kuniyoshi
Japanese, 1798-1861
Scene From a Kabuki Play, 1849
With seals of censors
Kinugasa Fusajiro and Yoshimura Gentamo
Nishiki-e (color woodblock print)
Oban format
Signed: Ichiyusai Kuniyoshi
Museum Collection
Long letters in Kabuki plays are of great dramatic importance!
Here, a high-ranking courtesan holds out a letter to a
threatening male in a gesture both defensive and aggressive. Is
the lower-ranking townsman leaping over the railing coming to
her rescue? Has he been hiding and listening? Is the letter
incriminating? Is this a scene from the famous Kanadehon
Chushingura (Treasury of Loyal Retainers)? But chivalry in
Kabuki and in Japanese prints is not always the same as Western
notions of chivalry-sometimes family must be sacrificed to a
higher cause, for instance.
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