Toyokuni I: Dramatic half-length double portrait of Bando Hikosaburo III and Nakamura Noshio III

Artist: Utagawa Toyokuni I (1769-1825)
Title: The kabuki actors Bando Hikosaburo III as Fujitaro and Nakamura Noshio II as Imayo Uta Bikuni  Date: 1796

Imayo uta Bikuni wears a traveling hat and hair covering, her sleeve covering her hand. Posed dramatically to the right, Fujitaro holds high a lamp and looks sternly down at her, obviously displeased or suspicious. This work is from Toyokuni’s finest artistic period of the 1790s, a period that is often considered the golden age of ukiyo-e. There are two similar portraits in the Baur Collection (G127 and G128), and according to Matthi Forrer, there was a group of at least fifteen half-length double portraits issued by this publisher in 1796, many against a grey ground, as here. They feature actors in plays in three of Edo’s theaters in the fall of 1796. As none of the prints have a censor’s seal (as required by law at the time for works for public sale), it has been surmised that this group may have been privately commissioned by kabuki fan clubs; this also helps explain their rarity. The two works in the Baur Collection are related to the play “Sugawara denju tenarai kagami”. One of those designs features Noshio Nakamura II as Chiyo. The character attributions are difficult for this group of works, and this attribution is taken from research done by the Asian Art Museum for their example. As with all the works from this series, a very scarce design.

Condition: Excellent impression; very good color and condition. Some surface wear and discoloration. Dimensions: ôban (37 x 24.9 cm)
Publisher: 伝 Den

Literature: See Asian Art Museum Grabhorn Collection. See Matthi Forrer’s “The Baur Collection Geneva: Japanese Prints Volume I”, numbers G127 and G128. Signature: Toyokuni ga

SKU: TOK056