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Gain access to this incredible resource through either a monthly or a yearly subscription and search the entire collection from your desktop, compare multiple images side by side and zoom into the minute details of the images. Visit www.davidrumsey.com/amica for more information on the collection, click on the link below the revolving thumbnail to the right, or email us at amica@luna-img.com . Creator Name: Katsukawa, Shunsho Creator Nationality: Asian; Far East Asian; Japanese Creator Role: Artist Creator Dates/Places: Japanese; 1726-1792 Asia,East Asia,Japan Creator Active Place: Asia,East Asia,Japan Creator Name-CRT: Katsukawa Shunsho Title: Sawamura Sojuro III (right), in his dressing room in conversation with Segawa Kikunojo III (left) Title Type: preferred View: Full View Creation Start Date: 1780 Creation End Date: 1783 Creation Date: c. 1780/83 Creation Place: Asia,East Asia,Japan Object Type: Prints Classification Term: Woodblock Materials and Techniques: Woodblock print. Dimensions: Oban; 36.0 x 24.6 cm Inscriptions: SIGNATURE: Shunsho ga AMICA Contributor: The Art Institute of Chicago Owner Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA ID Number: 1938.496 Credit Line: The Art Institute of Chicago, The Clarence Buckingham Collection Rights: http://www.artic.edu/aic/rights/main.rights.html Context: Sawamura Sojuro III stands wearing a y{Old Gamma}kata (informal cotton kimono, often worn as a bathrobe) decorated with his alternate crest (kaemon) of 'chrysanthemum in a circle' (kan-giku). The gesture of wiping the ear with the end of the sleeve is a common pictorial convention for showing that a person has just returned from the bath. Squatting on the floor is the great female impersonator (onnagata) Segawa Kikunojo III, dressed in a purple-and-black striped kimono and black haori jacket, with his alternate crest (kaemon) of a butterfly just visible on the sleeve. The black jacket has been embossed to suggest the folds of the fabric, using a technique known as kimedashi.Female impersonators were expected to dress and behave as women both on and off stage, and the superstars among them often became leaders of female fashion. A print such as this would excite viewers not merely because it shows two superstars casually chatting after the show in a dressing room, normally terra incognita to outsiders (particularly females): surely many women would go on to imagine themselves as Kikunojo III in casual proximity to Sojuro III clad only in his bathrobe. For Sojuro III, in his late twenties in the early 1780s, was perhaps the most attractive romantic hero ofthe day.Surrounding the two actors is the usual furniture of the dressing room: a cosmetic stand bearing a hand-mirror draped with a towel, a bucket of water for washing the face, a wig box, a smoking set. The large storage chest (nagamochi) behind them is for clothes, and on top of this is an open costume box in which three lavish brocade kimono have been neatly folded. It was the actor's responsibility to provide his own costumes, and performances were judged in part by the suitability - or chic - of the ensemble. Resting on the costume box are a pair of stage swords in sharkskin scabbards. The name-board hanging on the wall reads 'Sojuro.'The colors of the Chicago impression are still remarkably fresh, only the pale blue on Sojuro III's yukata having faded slightly. The considerable amount of pink in the print - in Japan as in the West a 'feminine' hue - may have been selected as appropriate to Kikunojo III. AMICA ID: AIC_.1938.496 AMICA Library Year: 1998 Media Metadata Rights: Copyright The Art Institute of Chicago, 1998 AMICA PUBLIC RIGHTS: a) Access to the materials is granted for personal and non-commercial use. b) A full educational license for non-commercial use is available from Cartography Associates at www.davidrumsey.com/amica/institution_subscribe.html c) Licensed users may continue their examination of additional materials provided by Cartography Associates, and d) commercial rights are available from the rights holder. Home
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