album;
print
- Museum number
- 2015,3053.1.1-30
- Title
- Object: Butai no nagame 舞台詠 (Views of the Stage)
- Description
-
Folding album with manuscript title, containing 25 horizontal chūban-sized and 5 vertical koban-sized prints of Osaka Kabuki actor likenesses. Colour woodblock with de-luxe metallic printing and embossing. The frontispiece of the album has swallows and bamboo hand-painted on pink paper.
- Production date
- 1849-1852
- Dimensions
-
Height: 18.90 centimetres (cover)
-
Width: 25.20 centimetres (cover)
- Curator's comments
- This album seems to have been assembled by a contemporary theatre aficionado who particularly admired prints of small format. A number of the designs feature the actor Onoe Kikugorō III (1784-1849), who died after performing in the spring season in Osaka in 1849. Soon afterward, Hirosada designed a commemorative set of five numbered horizontal prints of the actor in his best recent roles (Keyes 1984, p. 92), so the album may be partly memorial in character. From the way they are mounted in the album, it seems that 6 of the prints were originally intended as two triptych compositions (or sets of three prints). To date, only 5 of the 25 horizontal chūban designs appear to have been published in the scholarly literature. (T. Clark, 11/2015)
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 2015
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 2015,3053.1.1-30
- Additional IDs
-
Other BM number: Album.91
