Artist: Utagawa Kunisada (歌川国貞, 1786–1865), signing Toyokuni ga (豊国画) in a toshidama cartouche on each sheet — Kunisada in his years as Toyokuni III. Play: Yoshitsune Senbon-zakura (義経千本桜) — "Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees," one of the three great classics of the kabuki and jōruri repertoire. Scene: The Act IV travel-dance, Michiyuki Hatsune no Tabi (道行初音旅) — depicted as a shosagoto (dance piece) with its onstage musical ensemble visible behind the players. Roles & actors (the sheets give roles; actors identified by nigao): Ichikawa Kodanji IV as the fox Genkurō in the guise of Satō Tadanobu (centre), and Onoe Kikugorō IV as Shizuka Gozen (right). A pursuing figure in checked robes appears at left (see notes). Production: Ichimura-za, Edo, 1856 (Ansei 3). Format: Ōban triptych, tate-e — three sheets, each approx. 35–36 × 24–25 cm. Technique: Nishiki-e (full-colour woodblock) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Paper & condition A rich, tightly registered impression on a warm yellow ground, the composition unified from sheet to sheet by the long red lacquer bench of the musicians' platform. overall soiling, thinning/wear to the margins, some set-off (ink transfer), and small losses/holes. Overall fair condition. Please check the images! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- About the print Kunisada frames the most beloved passage of the whole play — and does something unusual with it. Rather than isolating the two dancers against Yoshino cherry, he pulls the "camera" back to show the michiyuki as theatre: the row of jōruri chanters at their red lacquer lecterns (kendai) and the shamisen players in matching black-and-pale-blue dress, seated on the raised degatari bench that supplies the music, weeping cherry hanging over the whole stage. Below them the drama plays out. At centre, the fox Genkurō — disguised as the loyal retainer Satō Tadanobu, drawn irresistibly to the Hatsune drum made from the skins of his parents — crouches forward, one hand raised before him like a paw, his fine features already tensing toward the animal beneath. At right, Shizuka Gozen turns back toward him with a startled, wide-eyed look, the drum at her shoulder, beginning to sense what her companion truly is. At left, a pursuer in bold checked robes and a fighting headband crouches among cart-wheel props, marking the arrival of the soldiers who will try to seize her. It is a scene of tenderness edged with menace and the supernatural, and by keeping the musicians in view Kunisada lets the buyer see the illusion and its machinery at once. The play & the michiyuki Written for the puppet stage in 1747 and taken into kabuki the following year, Yoshitsune Senbon-zakura follows the hunted Minamoto no Yoshitsune and, in its fourth act, turns to Shizuka's journey through the Yoshino mountains in search of him. Comforted along the way by "Tadanobu," she does not know that her escort is a fox-spirit in human form. The michiyuki is regularly lifted out and performed on its own as a dance showpiece — which is exactly the register Kunisada captures here, complete with the ensemble that carries it.