TOYOKUNI  (1769–1825). Ichikawa Danjūrō II. (Sold)

TOYOKUNI (1769–1825). Ichikawa Danjūrō II. (Sold)

Artist: Utagawa Toyokuni I (1769–1825)
Subject: Ichikawa Danjūrō II (1688-1758) as Soga no Gorō in a scene from the play Yanone (The Arrow Sharpener) one of the most popular of the Soga Brothers vendetta play.
Title: Nidaime Dai Hakuen Danjūrō (The second Great Hakuen Danjūrō)
Series: From an untitled series on The Danjūrō Family Tradition of Kabuki Actors of eight surimono including seven portraits by Toyokuni I and one surimono with a double portrait of Danjūro VIII by Toyokuni II.
Signature: Toyokuni hitsu. Poem signed Ryūeishi (Itonaga)
Date: ca. 1830's. Second edition.
Publisher: Privately issued by the Gogawa poetry club.
Size: Shikishiban surimono, 18x17,4 cm.
Medium: Woodblock color print with metallic pigments.
Literature: The series was first discussed in Theodore Bowie. Art of surimono. Bloomington,1979. More recently another impression is illustrated and described in Daniel McKee, Colored in the year's new light : Japanese surimono from the Becker Collection. Ithaca 2008, no. 128 and, with an exhaustive comment about the two editions, in Matthi Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013p. 270-274, illustrated no. 519a.
Remarks: According Matthi Forrer the edition with the Gogawa hourglass emblem on the margins is the second.
Conditions: Fine impression and color, the white margins trimmed, very good condition.
Item no: D 482
Status: Sold