KUNISADA • 宇津ノ谷峠 • 蔦の細道 • 日本の木版画 • 浮世絵 - Japan - Edo Period (1600-1868)

Artist: Utagawa Kunisada / Toyokuni III (歌川国貞・三代豊国, 1786–1865)
Title (cartouche, left sheet): 宇都の谷峠蔦の細みち Utsunoya tōge, tsuta no hosomichi — "Utsunoya Pass, the narrow path of ivy"

Play: 蔦紅葉宇都谷峠 Tsuta Momiji Utsunoya Tōge, by Kawatake Shinshichi II (later Mokuami); premièred 9th month, Ansei 3 (1856), Ichimura-za, Edo. Popularly known as 文弥殺し Bun'ya-goroshi

Roles (from left, per the red cartouches):
– Left: 座頭文弥 Zatō Bun'ya — Ichikawa Kodanji IV
– Centre: 伊丹屋十兵衛 Itamiya Jūbei — Bandō Kamezō I
– Right: 提婆乃仁三 Daiba no Ninza — Ichikawa Kodanji IV

Format: Ōban triptych — three sheets, each ca. 36 × 24.5 cm (overall ca. 36 × 73.5 cm)
Technique: Nishiki-e (full-colour woodblock print) on hōsho paper
Date: Ansei 3 (1856)
Signature: 豊国画 Toyokuni ga in the red toshidama cartouche, on all three sheets
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Condition: The two left-hand sheets (Bun'ya; Jūbei) are in very good condition — strong, fresh colour, firm paper, the night-blue and grey grounds evenly printed. The right-hand sheet (Daiba no Ninza) shows several defects: scuffing, minor wormholing and light soiling. The composition nevertheless reads clearly and completely across all three sheets, and the set presents well overall. Please refer to the images for full detail.
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About the print

Utsunoya Pass, before dawn. A blind masseur named Bun'ya is walking to Kyoto carrying a hundred ryō — money his sister raised by selling herself into the Yoshiwara, to buy him the rank of zatō. At the inn at Mariko the previous night, a travelling sharper called Daiba no Ninza tried for the purse and was pulled off him by a fellow guest, Itamiya Jūbei. Out of plain decency Jūbei offers to see the blind man over the pass. On the way he learns what Bun'ya is carrying, and he happens to need exactly that sum for his master's house. He asks. He is refused. And on the ivy path in the last of the dark, he kills him — begging pardon as he does it. The line "Yurushite kudasare, Bun'ya-dono" went straight from the stage into Edo street slang.

Kunisada builds the triptych around the moment immediately after. At left, under a thin crescent and slanting rain, Bun'ya lies at the roadside in yellow and indigo, his sedge travelling hat and staff fallen on the ground beside him. In the centre Jūbei strides out of the scene, a wave-patterned grey cloak thrown over a striped kimono, a white cloth twisted in his fist, black leggings and straw-corded sandals — with a pipe case and tobacco pouch dropped in the dirt behind him. At right, Ninza looks out from behind the lattice of a roadside shrine, head wrapped in a spotted cloth, a travelling bundle and pack stacked on the boards below him. He has seen everything, and the blackmail that follows drives the rest of the play.

The design's real interest is theatrical. Mokuami wrote Tsuta Momiji Utsunoya Tōge expressly for Ichikawa Kodanji IV, and the selling point of the première was hayagawari — Kodanji playing both the frail, sympathetic Bun'ya and the predatory Ninza, switching between them in front of the audience. Kunisada honours the conceit by putting Kodanji at both ends of the triptych, victim on one wing and watcher on the other, with Kamezō's Jūbei walking away between them. It was the partnership's first substantial success and the beginning of the Mokuami–Kodanji run of kizewamono that carried the last decade of Edo kabuki.