Page 167 - Fine Japanese Art Bonhams London May 2018

Okuni soon passed into urban mythology and the present lot, an development of Okuni’s entertainments; it also identifies the venue
important discovery, is one of a small group of very early screens that as the Noh stage of the Kitano shrine, where Okuni’s kabuki troupe
depict an actual performance taking place in the lively, hedonistic performed according to a document of 1603. In the present screen,
world of Momoyama-era Kyoto. One of the nearest parallels, in point although the stage itself resembles the Kyoto and other versions, as
of the detailed depiction of Okuni’s performance rather than the argued in a recent article by Professor Matthew McKelway (see below)
location or overall composition, is provided by a six-panel folding introducing a newly discovered pair of early-kabuki screens, the large
screen now in Kyoto National Museum (Important Cultural Property; bridge on the first panel points to the Kamo Riverbed at Gojo as the
at 88 x 268cm, its dimensions are very close to the present lot); a location of the performance. This is helpful in determining the early
reproduction can be found in Takeda Tsuneo (ed.), Nihon byobu-e date of the present lot, since in later versions the location shifts from
shusei (Collected Japanese Screen Paintings), vol. 13, Fuzokuga: Gojo to Shijo.
Sairei, Kabuki (Genre Painting: Festivals and Kabuki), Tokyo,
Kodansha, 1978, cat. no.58, where Hattori Yukio assigns it a date of The screen introduced by McKelway also resembles the present lot
circa 1605-1614. in exhibiting a unmistakable narrative structure from right to left and
including an elevated platform with taiko and weaponry; as McKelway
As the museum’s website (http://www.kyohaku.go.jp/eng/syuzou/ comments, the fact that a variety of weapons is shown, rather than
meihin/kinsei/item05.html) points out, the performance features a single type, is another indicator of early date. The earliest possible
just three actors: an actor wielding a sword, a woman sitting by the date is 1607, since the other half of the pair in the McKelway article
pillar, and a third character, a saruwaka clown in the case of the depicts the Kitano Shrine with alterations to its architecture made at
Kyoto screen but in this lot another character seated to the left. This that time; see Matthew McKelway (Tateno Marimi trans.), ‘Shinshutsu
indicates that the piece being played is probably Chaya asobi (Fun “Kitano Yuraku, Okuni Kabuki zu byobu”: Shoki kabukigoya no ichi
at the Teahouse), one of the Okuni troupe’s standard acts, and the hensen o megutte (Merrymaking at Kitano and Okuni Kabuki: The
website suggests that the absence of the three-stringed shamisen Movements and Meaning of the Early Kabuki Stage)’, Kokka, 1449,
demonstrates that the Kyoto screen depicts an early phase in the July 2016, pp.7-21.

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