Chushingura: The Treasury of Loyal Retainers - 7th act

 

Yoshitora Utagawa

 

1830 -'44 

color woodcut 

9 7/16 x 14 5/16"  

 

n/a 

title in Japanese characters along right side of image 

Ako City Board of Education, City History Compilation Office article number AkoCH-S0025_07 (Ritsumei University, Japan: Digital Exhibiton, B Exhibition, B1; arc.ritsumei.ac.jp) 

antique white laid 

published 

Kichizo Tsutaya, Tokyo 

22200 

$600.00 

The seventh of eleven acts in the play Kana dehon Chushingura, a bunraku puppet play written in 1748 to commemorate the forty-six ronin ordered to commit sepukku in 1703 by the shogun in Feudal Japan. Considered one of Japan's most popular theatrical dramas to this day - famously brought to West with "The 47 Ronin" in 1941 - it had been written for marionettes, due to the playwrights' disinterest in having actors impart their own interpretations onto the scenes. However, it was almost immediately adapted for kabuki as well.

In this composition, Utagawa has drawn Act 7 as if observing it play out in real time, mapping out the action from left to right. From Ritsumeikan University's website: "First, on the veranda in the back left, three samurai come to visit Yuranosuke, who is playing 'mennai chidori' with a waitress. Next, on the upper right, Kudayu and Bannai are whispering to each other, who have come to find out what Yuranosuke is really thinking. In the foreground on the left is the scene where Rikiya delivers a secret letter to his father Yuranosuke, and in the center of the screen, the scene of the letter being read by someone on the upper, lower, and under the floorboards is depicted. Heiemon is seen trying to kill his sister Okaru, who has read the letter by stealth, and make her his comrade in revenge. The veranda on the right front shows the scene of the defeat of Kudayu, which ends the seventh act.