Artworks

The Actor Nakamura Utaemon VI as Tonase in Kanadehon Chūshingura

Artwork · Kōkei Tsuruya · 1984 · Japanese woodblock print · British Museum

From the bust portraits of Kōkei Tsuruya (b. 1946), who single-handedly revived the ukiyo-e actor print after Sharaku: the great onnagata Nakamura Utaemon VI as Tonase, the strong, virtuous samurai lady of Chūshingura, grasping the hilt of her absent husband’s sword. Tsuruya prints only some seventy impressions and then defaces his blocks. 1 Mason 2005, pp. 386–387, fig. 462. ↩ Literatur Mason 2005: Penelope E. Mason, History of Japanese Art, 2nd, Pearson Education LTD. 2005.