Bunraku Puppet Hideki

This Bunraku puppet print by Hasegawa Konobu IV, issued by Uchida of Kyoto in the 1950s, depicts the kashira of a male warrior role from the historical-narrative jōruri repertory. The composition follows the conventions of the Bunraku Doll Print series in isolating the puppet figure against a flat decorative ground, with attentive treatment of the costume's patterned silk and the carved planes of the puppet head. The dignified frontal pose, the omission of the puppeteer's supporting hands, and the strong polychrome color register place the print within Konobu IV's postwar bunraku documentary practice, which followed the model established a generation earlier by his predecessor Sadanobu III. The print is recorded in the Japanese Art Open Database from the Robert O. Muller research files and exemplifies the kamigata theatrical tradition that the Hasegawa workshop maintained from Sadanobu I's nineteenth-century foundation through Konobu IV's postwar production.