Kuniyoshi: Goshaku Somegorô
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Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861)

Large bust portrait of the young otokodate (chivalrous commoner) Goshaku Somegorô, playing the shakuhachi flute. He wears an extravagant kimono with a gorgeous pattern of melon vines with leaves. Above his head a calligraphed poem by Umenoya Kakuchu (1801-1865), kyôka poet and friend of Kuniyoshi.

Title: Goshaku Somegorô

Series: 国芳模様正札附現金男Kuniyoshi moyô shôfuda tsuketari genkin otoko (Men of Ready Money with True Labels Attached, Kuniyoshi Fashion)

Signature: Ichiyûsai Kuniyoshi ga

Seal: Kiri mon

Engraver: Sugawa Renkichi

Publisher: Ibaya Kyûbei (Ibakyû, Kinseidô)

Censor seal: Hama

Date: c. 1845

Size: Vertical Ôban, 36,5 x 25,5 cm (overall)

Excellent impression and colours, with some metallic pigments (slightly oxidized) in the kimono, a little bit shimmering mica dust in the grey background. Nicely visible wood grain. Unbacked, full untrimmed image. Rarely seen in such a fine condition. Robinson, Kuniyoshi, 1961, no 153. Robinson, Warrior Prints (1982), p. 126, p. 40.3. ill. in Robert Schaap, Kunisada - imaging drama and beauty. Leiden 2016, p. 81, no. 59. From a series of ten impressive half-length portraits of popular folk heroes, each wearing a beautifully patterned kimono. According to Robinson (1982), the idiosyncratic and hardly (adequately) translatable series title with the price tag (shôfuda) alludes to the play 'Shôfuda tsuki kongen kusazuri' performed at the Kawarazaki Theatre in Edo in the first month of 1845.

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