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

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

Artist: Utagawa Toyokuni I (1769–1825)
Subject: Ichikawa Danjūrō IV in the role of Kagekiyo, a dragon on the foreground.
Title: Yondaime Kiba Danjūrō (The fourth Danjūrō of Kiba).
Series: From an untitled series of of eight surimono including seven portraits for the Danjūro lineage by Toyokuni I and one surimono with a double portrait of Danjūro VIII by Toyokuni II.
Signature: Ko Toyokuni hitsu. Poem signed Shinratei Manzō II.
Date: 1825. First edition.
Publisher: Privately commissioned by The Danjūrō Fan Club.
Size: Shikishiban surimono, 18x17,4 cm.
Medium: Woodblock color print.
Literature: There are several theories about the two editions of the series. The set 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. 135 and, with an exhaustive comment about the two editions, in Matthi Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, p. 270-274, illustrated no. 521.
Remarks: According Matthi Forrer, the first edition is without the Gogawa emblem on the margins, different poem from the second state and signature "ko (the late) Toyokuni ga".
Conditions: Very good impression and colour, white margins trimmed, very good conditions.
Item no: D 483
Status: Sold