Segawa Kikunojo I as a High-Ranking Courtesan Attended by Sanogawa Ichimatsu I as a Young Male Attendant Holding a Processional Umbrella and a Girl Attendant Holding a Portable Tray of Hot Coals

Artist Okumura Masanobu 奥村政信 (Japanese, 1686–1764)

Dateabout 1748–1749

Mediumcolor woodblock print in red and green (benizuri-e)

DimensionsŌ-ōban; 45.3 x 31.1 cm (17 13/16 x 12 1/4 in.)

ClassificationsPrints

Credit LineJohn Chandler Bancroft Collection

Terms

Object number1901.73

Label TextSegawa Kikunojo I (1699?-1749) is depicted as a high-class courtesan lighting her pipe at the charcoal fire in a small hibachi. The actor's gesture and pose communicates the elegant spirit of the courtesan. The hibachi forms a part of the equipment of a tabako-bon that is held by a kamuro, (girl attendant) impersonated by a young actor. Kikunojo was rated the top onnagata in Japan in 1744 and enhanced the vividness and reality of his acting by living as a woman in his daily life. His ideas on acting are in the Onnagata hiden (Female Impersonator's Secrets) and his writings were collected in Kokon yakusha rongo sakigake.Sanogawa Ichimatsu I (1722-62), was a handsome, popular heartthrob and the actual son of a samurai and the adopted son of a theatre worker (dekata). Outstanding both as a wakashu-gata and wakaonna-gata, he got his start in Kyoto, debuting in 1733 as a student of Sanogawa Mangiku, but was active mainly in Edo. Only forty-one when he died, his name lives on in a wellknown checkerboard (ishidatami) pattern, the ichimatsu-zome or ichimatsu-moyo, created for his 1741 role as Kumenosuke in Takaya Shinju at Edo's Nakamura-za. The original pattern was red on a white ground but it is now worn in various combinations, such as blue and white, purple and silver, purple and white and black and silver.

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