KUNICHIKA

Artist: Toyohara Kunichika 豊原国周 (1835–1900) Title: Yamauba (山姥) Series: Ichikawa Danjūrō Engei Hyakuban 市川団十郎演芸百番 Date: Colophon dated February, Meiji 30 (1897) Publisher: Fukuda Kumajirō 福田熊次郎, Nihonbashi-ku, Hasegawa-chō 19, Tokyo Block carver: Nisei Horiei 二世彫栄 (Horiei II) Signature / seals: Signed Kunichika hitsu 國周筆 in a cartouche, with the artist's red ring seal Format: Ōban tate-e, approx. 36 × 24 cm, full sheet with margins Condition Very good colour and impression with generous margins. The paper is firm and subtle with minor toning and soiling on the upper margin and faint centre fold. Very good overall! Please check the images! THE PRINT Danjūrō IX appears here in a female role, as Yamauba, the mountain woman of Japanese legend. In folk tradition she lived deep in the mountains of Ashigara and raised the wild boy Kintarō. He grew up with enormous strength and later served the warrior Minamoto no Raikō as Sakata no Kintoki, one of his Four Guardians. The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria holds an impression of this design and describes Yamauba as the adoptive mother of Kintarō. The figure came to the stage first through the Noh play Yamamba. Chikamatsu Monzaemon's puppet play Komochi Yamauba (1712) then gave the story the form the kabuki stage kept. In that play the courtesan Yaegiri is transformed into the mountain woman and becomes the mother of Kintoki. Yamauba pieces became a standard part of the kabuki dance repertoire. Danjūrō IX was the leading actor of the Meiji stage and a highly regarded dancer, and onnagata parts like this one were part of his range alongside his famous warrior and history roles. Kunichika's publisher commissioned this series in 1893 as a tribute to Danjūrō IX. Sheets were issued over several years, and the series was completed in 1903, the year of the actor's death and three years after Kunichika's own. The prints were made with expensive materials and printing techniques, and the series is widely regarded as the high point of Kunichika's late work. Other designs from it are held in the British Museum and the Honolulu Museum of Art.

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