The Actor Nakamura Utaemon VI as Tonase in Kanadehon Chushingura / Okubi-e (Bust Portraits, Series IV)
- Date:
- March 1983
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Source:
- British Museum
Key value factors: For living or recently deceased artists, limited edition size and gallery representation drive value. Signed and numbered prints from smaller editions are most desirable.
This March 1983 bust portrait from Kokei's fourth Okubi-e series shows Nakamura Utaemon VI as Tonase in Kanadehon Chushingura, the dramatized retelling of the forty-seven ronin vendetta that is kabuki's most performed play. Tonase is the wife of Honzo, a retainer who makes a fateful decision that entangles his family in the larger revenge plot. In Act IX, Tonase prepares to kill her own daughter in a desperate act of atonement — a scene of escalating horror that tests the onnagata's capacity for controlled emotional extremity. Kokei's bust portrait captures Utaemon's Tonase at close range, the face a study in dignified anguish, every line of the expression carved with the deliberation of the woodblock itself.
歌舞伎
Woodblock print
1955
Woodblock print
1928
Color lithograph
1930
Color lithograph
The Actor Nakamura Utaemon VI as Tonase in Kanadehon Chushingura / Okubi-e (Bust Portraits, Series IV) was created by Tsuruya Kokei (弦屋光溪) in March 1983.
The Actor Nakamura Utaemon VI as Tonase in Kanadehon Chushingura / Okubi-e (Bust Portraits, Series IV) depicts kabuki and portraits.
