Kunisada: Sukune Tarô (Sold)

Artist: Utagawa Kunisada
Title: Sukune Tarô
Series: From Contest of Roles : Mirror of “Tenarai Kagami” (hanakurabe tenarai kyô no uchi)
Date: 11/1852

One of ten portraits from the Kabuki play Sugawara’s Secrets of Calligraphy (Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami). In the scene of “Tôtenkô” Sukune Tarô, husband of Tatsuta in Yasui announces that Shôjô shall leave at cockcrow. Haji no Hyôe persuades Tarô to make a false crowing earlier so that they can kill Shôjô on the way. Tatsuta overhears their plan and ask them to stop but Tarô kills Tatsuta. In order to make a false crowing he puts her dead body on the water in the pond as it was known that a rooster would crow on a dead body. Tarô and Hyôe take Shôjô in a palaquin. (“Tôenko” is a kind of rooster which has a long crow.)

Dimensions: ôban
Publisher: Kogaya Katsugorô
Seal: censor’s seals: Watanabe Shoemon & Mera Ta’ichirô, Date seal: 11th month of Rat Year (1852)
Signature: Toyokuni ga

SKU: KUS250