Author: Utagawa Kunisada (歌川国貞) here signed as here as Kiō (old with happiness) Toyokuni (喜翁豊国).
Subject: The Kabuki actor Nakamura Shikan IV (四代目中村芝翫) in the role of Nangō Rikimaru (南郷力丸).
Play: Aoto Zōshi Hana no Nishikie (青砥稿花紅彩画).
Genre: yakusha-e (役者絵), Edo-e (江戸絵).
Size: large (ōban, 大判).
Publisher: Iseya Kanekichi (伊勢屋兼吉).
Period: c. 1862.
Trimmed: yes
Backed: no
Code: UKSI01010
Condition: good colours and saturation. Any remarkable stain, wrinkles nor creases.
A fixing on the upper-left part (just right above the Yellow cartouche and beside the red cartouche)
A print depicting the Kabuki actor Nakamura Shikan IV playing the role of Nangō Rikimaru, from the
famous kabuki play Aoto Zōshi Hana no Nishikie written by Kawatake Mokuami (河竹黙阿弥) and performed for
the first time in March 1862 at the Ichimura Za (市村座) of Edo.
The play is widely known under different names as Benten Kozō (弁天小僧), which refers to the main
character of the play or as Shiranami Gonin Otoko (白浪五人男): “Five men of the white waves” were
white waves is a term used to indicate thieves.
The play took as pivotal characters a band of five thieves that actually really existed in Osaka
during the Edo period.
Nangō Rikimaru appears as Benten Kozō’s retainer since the first act of the play, before the
gathering of the band of five.