Kabuki Actors Ichimura Uzaemon IX as Ko-kakeyama and Ōtani Hiroji III as Kōga Saburō

ca. 1771

Not on view

In the play Branches of a Flowering Potted Tree (Konohana Yotsugi no Hachinoki), the devil Ko-kakeyama (the evil spirit of Wakasa no Zenji Yasumura) holds a scroll in his mouth and a hammer in his hand and wears a crown of three flaming candles on his head. At the hour of the ox (two to four in the morning) on a rainy night, he performs the incantation known as ushi no toki mairi, driving three nails into the boll of a tree and uttering a curse upon the object of his hatred. Kōga Saburō, seated in the foreground, is ordered to defeat this devil spirit.

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九代目市村羽左衛門・三代目大谷廣次
Title: Kabuki Actors Ichimura Uzaemon IX as Ko-kakeyama and Ōtani Hiroji III as Kōga Saburō
Artist: Katsukawa Shunshō　勝川春章 (Japanese, 1726–1792)
Period: Edo period (1615–1868)
Date: ca. 1771
Culture: Japan
Medium: Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
Dimensions: 12 x 5 5/8 in. (30.5 x 14.3 cm)
Classification: Prints
Credit Line: Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1918
Object Number: JP437
Curatorial Department: Asian Art

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