Author: Toyohara Kunichika (豊原国周).
Subject: The Kabuki actor Onoe Kikugorō V (五代目 尾上 菊五郎) as Chōryō (張良).
Series: One hundred roles of Baikō (Baikō hyakushū no uchi, 梅幸百種之内).
Number: 54/100.
Genre: yakusha-e (役者絵).
Size: large (ōban, 大判) 37,2cm x 25,9cm ( 14,64 x 10,19 inches).
Publisher: Fukuda Kumajirō (福田熊次郎).
Period: c. 1894.
Trimmed: yes.
Backed: no.
Code: TKC01010
Condition: Very good condition. Colours are clear and vivid. It doesn't show any crease nor fixing.
Any remarkable stain, except for two line shaped halos on the top and middle section. It has not
been backed. It has been embellished with gauffrage and mica.
Kunichika's print from the "One hundred roles of Baikō", a colletion which portraits the kabuki actor
Onoe Kikugorō in one hundred different roles.
The historical character represented here is Chōryō, also know as Zhang Liang, a Chinese politician
and military strategist lived between the 3rd and 2nd century BC.
He is mainly remembered for having contributed to the establishment of the Han Dinasty and for his
involvement in the assassination attempt of the first Emperor Qin Shi Huang.
Descendend from an aristocrat family, he was born in Xinzheng town (xizheng shi / 新鄭市) , the capital
of the Hán state (han guo / 韓國), one of the seven major Chinese state by the
time, which in 230 BC was conquered and annexed to the Qin state.
As an act of revenge he tried killing the Emperor Qin Shi Huang hiring an assassin. He planned and
ambush and had a massive iron hammer forged for the man,
so that he could have thrown it crashing the Emperor carriage killing him. He eventually failed and
Zhang Liang found himself with no other choice but run away
keep living as a fugitive.