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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