The "dog-toothed" pattern surrounding the print and the register panel, is taken from the black-and-white cloak design popular in 19th-century representations of the rōnin which "symbolized...their unwavering devotion both by day and by night."²

To read more about the representations of Chūshingura in woodblock prints see the article on this site Chūshingura (The Treasury of Loyal Retainers) in Woodblock Prints.

¹ “The Double Identity of Chushingura: Theater and History in Nineteenth-Century Prints" by Chelsea Foxwell from Impressions 26, 2004, p. 38.
² Chushingura and the Floating World, David Bell, Japan Library, 2001, p. 30.

November 1878 Performance of Kanadehon Chūshingura

Source: “The Double Identity of Chushingura: Theater and History in Nineteenth-Century Prints" by Chelsea Foxwell from Impressions 26, 2004, p. 38.
"Prints for a November 1878 run of Kanadehon chūshingura at the Shintomi Theater in Tokyo represent the theater at the height of its success in a new location.  The eleventh month marked the start of the kabuki season, when the entire company was introduced (kao-mise, literally “showing the face”) in anticipation of the performances that would run through the ninth month of the following year.  The placement of Kanadehon chūshingura in the November lineup suggests that an all-star performance of the classic play was conceived as a strategy for augmenting the popularity of the theater.  Furthermore, the 1878 Shintomi performance rotated different actors for the major roles on different days.  While kabuki had a long tradition of starring one actor in multiple roles, this extraordinary variant on the tradition demanded that multiple actors be prepared to play at least two big roles." 

The Play

Source: Chūshingura On Stage And In Print http://www.columbia.edu/~hds2/chushingura/exhibition/pt1.html
The play Kanadehon Chūshingura is based on the "...Akō Incident of 1701-03, when forty-six rōnin were executed by seppuku for having avenged the death of their lord, Asano Takumi-no-kami, by killing his enemy Kira Kozuke-no-suke after 22 months of plotting. In the ensuing three centuries, their story has been retold endlessly, constantly expanded and embellished, to become Japan’s “national legend.”

The single most crucial event in this process of embellishment occurred in the autumn of 1748, almost a half-century after the initial incident, when a puppet play entitled Kanadehon Chūshingura (translated into English by Donald Keene as “The Treasury of Loyal Retainers”) was staged in Osaka. It was an instant success, and within months the play had become a hit on the kabuki stage as well. Chūshingura has remained the most frequently performed play in the repertoire of both those genres of traditional Japanese theater throughout the intervening two and a half centuries."

Kanadehon Chūshingura in Color Woodblock Prints
Source: Chūshingura On Stage And In Print http://www.columbia.edu/~hds2/chushingura/exhibition/pt1.html

"Themost impressive legacy of Kanadehon Chūshingurain print is the large number of color woodblock prints that were madeprimarilyto advertise upcoming performances by showing the major actors inwell-knownscenes, but which also extended into a variety of peripheral genres aswell. Ingeneral, only a limited number of dramatic high points were selectedfor illustration,so that the same scenes were depicted over and over. 

Manykabuki prints...were issued in multiples of two(diptychs)and three (triptychs). This was a general tendency in late Edo prints, and was done inpart to overcome the size limitations of theprinting blocks, which could not exceed the normal dimensions of thewildcherry tree from which they were made. The multi-sheet formats alsooffered thepossibility, however, of  enjoyingeach single sheet separately. Many oftheseworks canthus be visually apprehended in two different ways, either as amulti-sheetunit showing actors interacting with one another, or as singleportraits ofspecific actors.

Themajority of kabuki prints depicting KanadehonChūshingura were intended for a specific performance, whichcan beidentified by the crests of the actors playing particular roles. Theyserved inthis way as both advertisements and documents of one-time performances,andwere rarely reprinted, so that the total number of any one printprobably ranfrom one hundred to several hundred copies.

Thetotal variety of different Chūshinguraprints, however, was very large, particularly if we include the manyplays thatwere derivative of Kanadehon Chūshingura,a category known as kakikae, or“re-writes.” In addition, some prints depicted not a particularperformance,but a generic Chūshingura scene,sometimes with specific actors, sometimes not even related to thekabuki stagebut rather illustrating the jōruri narrative. Of a total of some800Chūshingura-related prints in the Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum atWaseda, 45 percent show specific performances of KanadehonChūshingura, 18 percent depict kakikaeperformances, and 37 percent are of a generic ormiscellaneous type.

Thetotal number of different Chūshingura prints ever issued was longthought to bein the range of 1500-2000, but in the preparation of a complete catalogof suchprints that is soon to be published by Akō City, it has beendiscoveredthatthe actual number is closer to 5000, constituting a huge body of visualmaterial on this single play and its many spin-offs."

The Actors Pictured

For background on the actors Nakamura Nakazō III, Ichikawa Sadanji, Ichikawa Danjūrō IX, Onoe Kikugorō and Nakamura Sōjūrō see their respective entries in the article The Kabuki Actor on this site.

Print Details

IHL Catalog	#457
Title (Description)	The actors Nakamura Nakazō III, Ichikawa Sadanji, Ichikawa Danjūrō IX, Onoe Kikugorō V and Nakamura Sōjūrō in the role of Yuranosuke in the play Kanadehon Chūshingura
Artist	Toyohara Chikayoshi (fl. 1870s-1880s)
Signature	Toyohara Chikayoshi hitsu with toshidama seal
Seal	toshidama
Publication Date	1878
Publisher	Top: Dai 大 [Marks 08-102; publisher ref. 034] Left cartouche: 出版人 shuppanjin (publisher) 山村金三良 Yamamura Kinzaburō [Marks: similar to 26-157; publisher ref. 034] followed by publisher's address Right cartouche: 画工 (artist) 鈴木さと Suzuki Sato* followed by artist's address. * given name of Toyohara Chikayoshi
Carver	Hori Kichi 彫吉
Impression	excellent
Colors	excellent
Condition	good- minor margin trimming; lightly backed; printers marks within image
Genre	ukiyo-e; nigao-e; yakusha-e
Miscellaneous
Format	vertical oban triptych
H x W Paper	14 x 9 in. (35.6 x 22.9 cm) each sheet
Literature
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