The Onnagata Actor Segawa Kikunojō II as Yaoya Oshichi Holding a Doll of Her Lover, Kichisaburō
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.This vertically elongated design, in the format known as a pillar print (hashira-e), presents a stylized full-length portrait of Segawa Kikunojō II (1741–1773), one of the most popular onnagata, or male actors of female roles, of the mid-eighteenth century. Here, he is represented in the popular stock role of Yaoya Oshichi, a greengrocer’s daughter, who has fallen in love with a temple page named Kichisaburō. Oshichi is shown at a tender moment when she takes into her arms a doll of her lover Kichisaburō, whom she met and fell in love with when she took refuge at his family temple during a fire in Tokyo (based on actual events). The inscription above the figure gives the actor’s full name in bold characters, followed by a seventeen-syllable haikai signed Rokō, the actor’s poetry name:
瀬川菊之丞
かぶとにも 胸におもひや ふうじ文 路考
Segawa Kikunojō
The feelings in my heart
extend even to this doll—
and in folded love-letters.
—Rokō
(trans. John T. Carpenter)
瀬川菊之丞
かぶとにも 胸におもひや ふうじ文 路考
Segawa Kikunojō
The feelings in my heart
extend even to this doll—
and in folded love-letters.
—Rokō
(trans. John T. Carpenter)
Artwork Details
- 鳥居清満画 二代目瀬川菊之丞の八百屋お七
- Title: The Onnagata Actor Segawa Kikunojō II as Yaoya Oshichi Holding a Doll of Her Lover, Kichisaburō
- Artist: Torii Kiyomitsu (Japanese, 1735–1785)
- Period: Edo period (1615–1868)
- Date: ca. 1761–67
- Culture: Japan
- Medium: Woodblock print (benizuri-e); ink and color on paper; pillar print (hashira-e)
- Dimensions: Image: 27 1/2 × 4 in. (69.9 × 10.2 cm)
Frame: 30 7/8 × 7 1/4 in. (78.4 × 18.4 cm) - Classification: Prints
- Credit Line: Promised Gift of Lee E. Dirks
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art