The Kabuki Actor Ichikawa Danjûrô II (1689-1758)
Katsukawa Shunsho (Japanese, 1726-1792)
1788 (inscription 1829)
- Medium
- Hanging scroll; Ink and colors on silk
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 81.5 × 31 cm (32 1/8 × 12 3/16 in.); Overall with mount and knobs: 170.8 × 50.2 cm (67 1/4 × 19 3/4 in.)
- Culture
- Japan
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Asia
- Credit line
- Frederick W. Gookin Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This work depicts the Kabuki actor Ichikawa Danjūrō II (1689–1758) performing in a revenge play as Soga Gorō, the younger of two brothers. Here, he sharpens an arrow as he plots the death of the man who caused his father to commit ritual suicide (seppuku). Decades after the painting was completed, one of the actor’s descendants, Ichikawa Danjūrō VII, added an inscription of appreciation.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
