Artist: Attributed to Utagawa Kunisada I 歌川国貞 (Toyokuni III, 1786–1865) Title: Memorial Portrait of the Actor Onoe Kikugorō III 三代目尾上菊五郎 (shini-e) Date: 1849 (Kaei 2) Format: Ōban tate-e, approx. [36 × 25 cm] Technique: Woodblock print (nishiki-e), ink and colour on paper Signature: Two-character signature with a red seal at left of the inscription Inscription: Memorial text recording the actor’s death at Kakegawa in Tōtōmi province -------------------------------------------------------------------- Condition Good condition with good colors across the sheet. Some minor soiling! The paper is firm and subtle. Please check the images! --------------------------------------------------------------------- About the print Shini-e, “death pictures”, were memorial prints issued within days or weeks of a famous actor’s death, often showing the actor in plain dress with a record of his death and a farewell poem. This sheet commemorates Onoe Kikugorō III (1784–1849), one of the great stars of late Edo kabuki. The Fitzwilliam Museum describes him as one of the most talented actors of his age, and he was closely associated with the playwright Tsuruya Nanboku IV, frequently playing characters in Nanboku’s plays, above all the ghost roles for which he was famous. His final years were unsettled. Before his 1847 retirement he appeared in Onoe Kikugorō Ichidai Banashi, a play that showcased his talent for ghost roles. He then opened a rice-cake shop, but was back on stage in 1848, on tour to Nagoya and Osaka. In the fourth month of 1848, Kikugorō III and his son Matsusuke III took the names Ōkawa Hashizō I and Ōkawa Sanchō in Nagoya, and in the eighth month he settled in Osaka with his son. He died on the 24th day of the 4th lunar month of 1849, at Kakegawa station on the Tōkaidō post road, on his way back to Edo. The inscription on this sheet records his death at Kakegawa, so the print was made for Edo audiences who had lost their star on the road home. The family’s later fortunes kept his memory alive on stage: his sons-in-law included Onoe Kikugorō IV and Ichimura Uzaemon XII, and his grandson became Onoe Kikugorō V. Other memorial portraits of Kikugorō III from 1849 are held by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Edo-Tokyo Museum.