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Your galleryThe Actor Ichikawa Danzo III as Shoki the Demon Queller in the Play Date Moyo Kumo ni Inazuma, Performed at the Morita Theater in the Tenth Month, 1768
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Look at the scowling face and bristling hair, the sword drawn across his body, and Shunshō’s signature with its jar-shaped seal at the left.
In the tenth month of 1768, at the Morita Theater in Edo, the kabuki actor Ichikawa Danzō III played Shōki the Demon Queller in a play whose title the Art Institute translates as Dandyish Design: Lightning Amid Clouds. Katsukawa Shunshō catches him striking a pose, called a mie, with hair and sleeves flying and his crest of three nested squares on his robe. The tan background was blue before it faded.
Color woodblock print; hosoban · 31.3 × 14 cm · Art Institute of Chicago
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- Art Institute of Chicago: The Actor Ichikawa Danzo III as Shoki the Demon Queller in the Play Date Moyo Kumo ni Inazuma, Performed at the Morita Theater in the Tenth Month, 1768
- Art Institute of Chicago: Actor Ichikawa Danzô III as Shôki the Demon-Queller in “Dandyish Design: Lightning Amid Clouds” (“Date moyô kumo ni imazuma”)
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Details and source
- Museum title
- The Actor Ichikawa Danzo III as Shoki the Demon Queller in the Play Date Moyo Kumo ni Inazuma, Performed at the Morita Theater in the Tenth Month, 1768
- Artist
- Katsukawa Shunsho 勝川 春章 Japanese, 1726-1792
- Date
- c. 1768
- Medium
- Color woodblock print; hosoban
- Dimensions
- 31.3 × 14 cm (12 5/16 × 5 1/2 in.)
- Credit line
- Clarence Buckingham Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.