- Museum number
- 1881,1210,0.1767
- Description
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Painting, handscroll. 18 scenes with accompanying text relating the life and death of the travelling actress Okume. Ink, colour and gold on paper. Signed and inscribed.
- Production date
- 1849-1862
- Dimensions
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Height: 31.70 centimetres
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Width: 1655 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
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Clark 1992
The artist of this scroll, one 'Amano, ninth-generation Tachibana Sei'ei' of whom nothing else can be ascertained at present, explains that this is an old story of a jealous woman, which has been reworked in modern fashion by Kuniyoshi and then copied by himself, with a few additions to the text, over a period of almost fourteen years from 1849 to 1862 while living in Honjo. Certainly in several scenes the painting of the face of the woman protagonist is very close to Kuniyoshi's style of drawing beauties.
The eighteen painted scenes and minutely written text tell a story of increasing horror concerning the life and grisly death of a travelling actress, Okume. She specialises in roles of male heroes and is often called upon to act gorily realistic scenes of suicide and death, involving extensive use of fake blood in her makeup. Life comes to imitate art, however, when she becomes pregnant and is tortured to induce a miscarriage by a sinister woman referred to simply as 'the jealous wife'. When this fails, Okume is forced to commit suicide by ritual disembowelment and the hag stabs the unborn child. Her body is then shown in various stages of decomposition.
A taste for sadism and bloody murder is apparent in quite a significant segment of late Edo fiction, popular imagery and theatre, starting perhaps with the 'yomihon' of Bakin and Hokusai. Kuniyoshi's prints of the Hag of Hitotsuya and his pupils Yoshitoshi and Yoshiiku's series of 1867 on twenty-eight famous murders,' Eimei niju-hachi shuku', must be among some of the most horrific, if aestheticised, images ever produced. Most societies have a taste for such brutality, and the Ukiyo-e artists' exploration of such areas, though undoubtedly following that public taste, also had the concomitant result of extending the expressive range of their work.
Literature:
Anderson, William, 'Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of Japanese and Chinese Paintings in the British Museum'. London, Trustees of the British Museum, 1886, no. 1767.
'(Hizo) Ukiyo-e taikan' ('Ukiyo-e Masterpieces in European Collections'), ed. Narazaki Muneshige. Vol. 1, Tokyo, Kodansha, 1987, BW nos 57-62.
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Asahi 1996
この画巻の作者について「天野九代橘精榮」とある以外は今のところまったく不明である。この画巻は嫉妬深い女性の古い物語で、歌川国芳によって当世風に取り上げられ、作者が自分で模写したものであるという。その際に文章を少しつけ加え、本所に住んでいた嘉永2年（1849）から文久2年（1862）のほぼ14年間を費やしたという。確かに場面によっては主人公の女の顔が国芳の美人画にそっくりなところがある。
18の画面と詳細な本文によって、女旅役者おくめの転落の一途をたどる人生が戦慄の死に至るまで語られる。おくめは男役を得意とし、ならずものが自殺したり死んだりするところを本物のように演じることを求められ、扮装に血糊を多用した。人生は芸術を模倣するとでもいうべきか、彼女は身ごもるものの、「嫉妬ある女」とのみ称される意地悪な女によって流産するように折檻される。折檻は失敗するが、おくめはむりやり切腹させられるはめになり、意地悪な女が腹の子を刺す。その後おくめの死体がだんだん腐っていく様子が描かれる。
残虐や流血を好む傾向は江戸時代後期の小説、大衆の娯楽、歌舞伎の特徴をよく示す要素である。おそらくは滝川馬琴と葛飾北斎の読本にはじまる傾向であろう。例えば歌川国芳の「一つ家老婆」や、その弟子たちである月岡芳年と落合芳幾による28の有名な殺人を描いた慶応3年（1867）の「英名二十八衆句」がある。特に「英名二十八衆句」は耽美的なところもあるとはいえ、最も残虐なイメージを表現したものといえよう。たいていの社会にはこのような残忍さを好む傾向があり、また浮世絵師自身が開拓した面でもあった。一般の好みに合わせてであることは間違いないが、浮世絵師達が題材の範囲を広げようとした結果でもある。
（伊藤紫織（千葉市美術館））
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'Painted by Ama-no Ku-dai (Tachibana no Sei-yei). Drawings copied from Kuniyoshi.' (unattributed annotations in the specially interleaved Japanese Study Room copy of Anderson 1886)
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1881
- Acquisition notes
- The collection of over 2,000 Japanese and Chinese paintings assembled by Prof. William Anderson during his residency in Japan, 1873-1880, was acquired by the Museum in 1881. The items were not listed in the register, but rather were published separately as the 'Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of a Collection of Japanese and Chinese Paintings in the British Museum' (Longmans & Co, 1886).
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1881,1210,0.1767
- Additional IDs
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Asia painting number: Jap.Ptg.1595 (Japanese Painting Number)
