Artist: Migita Toshihide 右田年英 (1863–1925) Series: Mimasu Awase Sugata 三升合姿 ("Figures Compared, Played by Mimasu") — a deluxe ōkubi-e series portraying Ichikawa Danjūrō IX in his most celebrated kabuki roles Subject / Sheet title: Musashibō Benkei 武蔵坊弁慶 (to be confirmed — see cataloguer's note) Publisher: Sasaki Toyokichi (Sasakiya) 佐々木豊吉 Date: Meiji 26 (1893) Format: Ōban tate-e (approx. 36 × 24 cm) Technique: Nishiki-e — multi-block colour woodcut on hōsho paper 1. Impression and colour Very good impression with the full Meiji palette intact. Karazuri embossing on the white scrolling pattern is crisp and visible in raking light. 2. Paper and condition Printed on high-quality hōsho paper. Very good overall condition for a print of this age and complexity. The dark flecks visible across the surface are paper-fibre inclusions characteristic of this hōsho stock — not foxing or staining. Minor age-toning to the margins, faint surface soiling consistent with handling, and the natural fibre texture of the sheet. Colours fresh and unfaded. 3. The subject — Musashibō Benkei Benkei, the warrior-monk of the late twelfth century, is one of the towering figures of Japanese popular history and the kabuki stage. Originally a yamabushi of formidable strength, he is said to have stationed himself at the Gojō Bridge in Kyoto, challenging passing swordsmen for their blades, until defeated by the young Minamoto no Yoshitsune — to whom he then swore lifelong fealty. He followed Yoshitsune through the Genpei War and into exile, dying in his master's defence at the siege of Koromogawa, where legend records him expiring on his feet, transfixed by arrows. For the kabuki stage Benkei is the supreme aragoto role — physically immense, morally uncompromising, capable of both ferocity and cunning. Ichikawa Danjūrō IX (1838–1903), the leading actor of the Meiji period and heir to the Ichikawa house specialism in aragoto, made the role peculiarly his own, above all in Kanjinchō — the "Subscription List" play in which Benkei bluffs the barrier guard at Ataka by improvising the reading of a blank scroll. Toshihide here gives us not a stage moment but the essence of the role: shaven-skulled, glaring, the great pole weapon raised diagonally behind him, the Mimasu triple-square crest of the Ichikawa line set as a roundel at the heart of the composition. 4. The series — Mimasu Awase Sugata Mimasu Awase Sugata — literally "Figures Compared, Played by Mimasu" — is Toshihide's tribute to the dominant kabuki figure of his lifetime. Mimasu (三升, "three measures") is the yagō (house name) of the Ichikawa Danjūrō line, taken from the family's nested-square crest. The series presents Danjūrō IX in his greatest roles as full ōkubi-e bust portraits of remarkable scale and graphic confidence, each accompanied by a calligraphic poem in the upper field. It belongs to a small group of late-Meiji deluxe actor portrait series (alongside Kunichika's Hyakuroku-shu and Kōgyo's Nōgaku Hyakuban) that brought ukiyo-e portraiture to a final pitch of refinement before the form's eclipse. Toshihide, a pupil of Yoshitoshi, brought to it his master's psychological intensity and his own cooler, more architectural draughtsmanship.