Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

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Ichikawa Ennosuke III as the boatwoman Oen

  • Description

    This play is an example of a ‘dance piece’, or shosagoto, one of the three main categories of kabuki play. The other types are jidaimono, which feature historical plots and characters; and sewamono, or ‘domestic plays’, which generally focus on commoners in a contemporary setting.

    Handsome boatmen ferrying passengers across the Sumida River in the capital city of Edo were popular idols of the Edo period (1600-1868). The only thing they feared was thunderstorms. This humorous dance shows a comical encounter between a drunken boatman (here a boatwoman) and the Thunder Spirit, carrying his drums and dressed in an animal skin loincloth.

  • Details

    Series
    Bust Portraits XI
    Associated place
    Asia Japan (place of creation)
    Date
    1997
    Artist/maker
    Tsuruya Kōkei (born 1946) (designer)
    Associated people
    Ichikawa Ennosuke III (born 1939) (subject)
    Material and technique
    woodblock on ganpi paper
    Dimensions
    print 38 x 23 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    Technique index
    Object type index
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Presented by Philip Harris, 2010.
    Accession no.
    EA2010.49

Past Exhibition

see (1)

Location

    • currently in research collection

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