"Toneri Sakuramaru" — A Poem by Ōshikōchi no Mitsune Paired with a Celebrated Kabuki Tragedy, from Mitate Sanjūrokkasen no Uchi Artist: Utagawa Kunisada / Toyokuni III (歌川国貞 / 三代豊国, 1786–1865) Subject: Ōshikōchi no Mitsune (凡河内躬恒, fl. late 9th–early 10th century), one of the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets and a compiler of the Kokin Wakashū — paired here with the actor Bandō Shūka (坂東しうか) in the role of Toneri Sakuramaru (舎人桜丸), from the kabuki play Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami Series: Mitate Sanjūrokkasen no Uchi (見立三十六歌撰之内) — "Comparisons for the Thirty-Six Selected Poets" Technique: Woodblock print (ukiyo-e), full colour (nishiki-e) Date: Japan, mid-1850s (Kaei–Ansei era, late Edo period) Format: Ōban tate-e, approx. 36 × 24.5cm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Paper & condition A good, fresh impression, with colors fairly preserved. The print was professionally restored from an Edo-period album: the original album folds (one horizontal, one vertical) have been flattened and the sheet stabilised, so the paper is now firm and supple. There is some darkening along the folds otherwise the paper is firm and subtle. Please check the images! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ōshikōchi no Mitsune and the Role of Sakuramaru Ōshikōchi no Mitsune was one of the great poets of the early Heian court, ranked among the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets (Sanjūrokkasen) and, together with Ki no Tsurayuki, one of the compilers of the Kokin Wakashū, Japan's first great imperial poetry anthology. Though he never rose high in official rank, his reputation as a poet was second only to Tsurayuki's, and his verses — prized for their delicate, sensuous imagery — appear throughout the Kokinshū and later in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu. Kunisada pairs Mitsune's verse with a role from one of the most beloved plays in the kabuki repertoire, Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami. Sakuramaru is one of three brothers — Umeōmaru, Matsuōmaru, and Sakuramaru — who serve as toneri (palace attendants) in the play's tangled plot around the disgrace and exile of the scholar-statesman Sugawara no Michizane. Sakuramaru's part in the drama is a tragic one: as attendant to Prince Tokiyo, he fails to prevent the discovery of the prince's secret liaison, an indiscretion that helps precipitate Michizane's downfall. Consumed by guilt at his failure, Sakuramaru takes his own life in the play's famous seppuku scene — one of the most affecting set-pieces in the whole Sugawara cycle, and a role prized among kabuki's leading actors for its blend of youthful grace and mounting despair. The gentle, downcast pose Kunisada gives him here, absorbed and inward rather than active, sits comfortably with that reputation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Mitate Sanjūrokkasen Series Mitate Sanjūrokkasen no Uchi belongs to the popular Edo genre of mitate-e — "comparison pictures" — in which a classical subject is reimagined through a contemporary lens. Here the conceit pairs each of the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets with a kabuki actor in a role thought to embody some resonance with the poet's verse or reputation, allowing Kunisada to bring together two of Edo's great cultural obsessions: classical court poetry and the theatre. Each sheet combines a large actor portrait in the foreground with a small, delicately printed landscape or genre vignette above, inscribed with the relevant poem — a format that lets Kunisada showcase both his celebrated skill at actor likenesses and his workshop's finer decorative printing in a single design.