Background
Just across the canal from Osaka's Dôtonbori (道頓堀) theater district was an area called Shimanouchi (島の内), where the city's largest unofficial pleasure quarter could be found. Shimanouchi hosted an annual parade early each summer, identified here as Naniwa Shinmanouchi nerimono (Costume parade in Shimanouchi, Osaka: 浪花島の内ねり物). It featured waitresses, geisha, and courtesans dressed in costumes while performing skits or pantomimes about well-known figures from contemporary society, theater, history, and legend. In this colorful pageant the women were accompanied by decorative floats carrying musicians and dancers.
Sekidera Komachi (関寺小町, Komachi at Sekidera, or Komachi at the Barrier Temple) is a famous Nô play of the "third category" (plays about women) by Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443), whose entire text has survived. Its central character is a real life figure, the great ninth-century poet Ono no Komachi (小野小町), who was famous both for her poetry and her beauty. Her poem for the Sekidera episode reads: So lonely am I that / my body like a floating reed / broken from its root / should any current take me, / I would go along, I think. (Wabinureba / mi no ukigusa no —
/ ne wo taete / sasou mizu araba / inan to zo omou)
The play depicts Komachi at the end of her life, when her beauty has faded and she is living in great poverty. On the evening of the seventh day of the seventh month, during the Festival of Stars (Tanabata matsuri (七タ祭り), the Abbot of Sekidera visits her in her hut, accompanied by two priests and a child, so that they might hear her talk about poetry. During the course of their conversation, the abbot realizes her identity and is astonished and delighted. He invites her to come with them to the festival, but she declines. The child dances part of a gagaku (雅楽 elegant, courtly dance) for her, the Manzairaku. (Happiness of ten-thousand years, 萬歳楽), a slow, auspicious court dance. Inspired, she starts to dance herself, and continues to do so until dawn. In the early morning light, she considers the transience of life, and her shame at what she has become, which Zeami tragically underscores by setting the action during the Tanabata matsuri, which celebrates two young lovers.
Design
Kamiagata-e are overwhelmingly images of actors from the kabuki theater (yakusha-e, actor prints: 役者絵). Among the most notable exceptions are the bijinga (beautiful women prints: 美人画) inspired by various nerimono in Osaka and Kyoto. Prints commemorating the Gion nerimono parade in Kyoto enjoyed popularity c. 1812-22, but their format was the small hososban and they were kappazuri-e (stencil prints: 合羽摺絵). Osaka got a late start and flirted only occasionally with the nerimono genre, but their efforts, like the Kunihiro featured here, were lavish ôban nishiki-e. The series Naniwa Shinmanouchi nerimono ranks high among these productions.
Kunihiro, Shigeharu, and Yoshikuni all designed prints for this series. The year 1833 has been proposed as a publication date by most writers. The large seal, its form so much like the oversized artist seals that were in vogue during this period, may be an unidentified publisher's seal, or a sponsor's mark, as it appears on prints by all three artists.
The colors on this impression are very fine, especially the red colorant, matching the best we have seen for this design.
References: WKN, p. 199, no. 194; British Museum (1906,1220,0.1130); Philadelphia Museum of Art (1969-208-229; TWOP, cat. no. 234, p. 233)
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