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Hello,

I've got this print by Kunisada. I cannot read the actors name. I can get the first part which is Ichikawa. But I cannot read the rest.

Any help will be much appreciated ! Thank you !

I think it is Ichikawa Ebizo V. If I am right, this is a very early Kunisada print because the Ichikawa Ebizo V name was used between 1797 and 1807 (when the actor took the Ichikawa Danjuro VII name). Kunisada (1786 - 1864) would have been about 20 years old when this was done.

Kunisada joined the school of Utagawa Toyokuni I around 1800 as an apprentice at the age of 14. His first printed works began to appear in late 1807. That coincides with tail end of the Ichikawa Ebizo V name.

Cheers,
Stan

URL Title :Ichikawa Ebizo V

This is Ichikawa Ebizô V (市川海老蔵) in the role of the villainous Yashio (八汐), a court woman who kills Masaoka’s son, probably in the play 'Zensei kogane no hana', staged in 1832 (not sure of that).
Published by Daikokuya (act. between c.1820-37).

Guy.

Hello,

Thank you very much for the information.
I also think it is a print of Ichikawa Ebizô V but made around 1830. It is strange that buy that time this actor was well known as Ichikawa Danjuro VII. Kunisada himself has made many other portraits of him. I wonder why did he chose to write his name as Ebizô V ?

Here's a chronology of Ichikawa Danjuro VII's career that explains a little bit about the name changes http://www.kabuki21.com/ebizo5.php

It looks like the earliest this print could date to is 1832.

Dang! I didn't notice that he took the name back in 1932.

Cheers,
Stan

There's a couple of other things that date the print a little too. The style of really early Kunisada prints was different, with the eyes of the actors most noticeably being sort of "bug" eyed, and his early signature was much more squarish with the "go" character being the more traditional form, rather than the more stylized "lazy V" sort of thing he used later on. The print just doesn't look that early.

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