Description:
single vertical ōban from a triptych; nishiki-e; yakusha-e
Label Text:
This panel is signed at lower-right "Gototei Kunisada ga" ('drawn by Gototei Kunisada"). To the left of the signature is the seal of publisher Yamaguchiya Tōbei of the firm Kinkōdō, a stylized version of the katakana character "to." The actor and his role are indentified at upper-left. There is another impression of this panel in the collections of Waseda University's Tsubouchi Museum (acc. no. 100-4054 ).
This kabuki play, originally written by Hasegawa Senchi, made its premiere in 1732. It is also known as "Akoya no Kotozeme," or simply "Akoya," and deals with the surviving general of the defeated Heike clan and his mistress Akoya. Today, only Act III is regularly performed. Shigetada, the character depicted here, conducts a kind of polygraph test on Akoya. In order to determine if she knows the whereabouts of her missing lover, Shigetada orders her to play several musical instruments, including the koto (Japanese zither) seen at lower-left. She plays them all perfectly, indicating she is not nervous; Shigetada therefore believes her that she does not know where to find her lover, Kagekiyo. This work is also traditionally known for its a brutal scene of torture of Akoya at the hands of the evil Iwanaga, from which its other title, which means "The Torture of Akoya," derives.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+2005.398 |
