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Nōga taikan, Miidera

 

 Japanese Color Woodblock Print

Miidera 三井寺

(The Miidera Temple)

from the series Nōga taikan

by Tsukioka Kōgyo, 1926


IHL Cat. #792

About This Print

Number 44* of 200 prints issued as part of the series Nōga taikan (Encyclopedia of Noh Plays) depicting a scene from the play Miidera often attributed to the playwright Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443).1  This print still maintains its semi-transparent cover sheet providing information on the play and its characters.

cover sheet
click on image to see detail

* number appears in the lower right hand of the cover sheet.

 For two other depictions of this play by the artist see Nōgakuzue, Miidera and Nōgaku hyakuban, Miidera.

1 According to the The Ohtsuki Noh Theatre Foundation website "recent scholarship suggest a later author."


The Play - Miidera (The Miidera Temple) by Zeami

Source: A Guide to No, P.G. O'Neill, Hinoki Shoten, 1929, p. 108.

Characters:

Shite - the mother of Semmitsu
Kyōgen - a soothsayer
Ko-kata - the child of Semmitsu
Waki - a priest of Miidera
Waki-tsure - two attendant priests
Kyōgen - a servant


A mother whose child has disappeared makes a long pilgrimage to the Kyōmizu-dera in Kyoto and asks the goddess Kannon to help her find him again.  She has a dream which is interpreted by a fortune-teller to mean that she must go to the temple called Mii-dera to meet her son again.  Arriving there on the night of the full moon quite unbalanced through anxiety and grief, she rings the temple bell.  The priests of the temple, who are looking after her son Semmitsu and have been viewing the moon with him, come up to reproach her.  But as they talk, it is found that she is the boy's mother and the two are happily reunited.

Print Details

 IHL Catalog #792
 Title Miidera 三井寺 (The Miidera Temple)
 Series Nōga taikan 能画大鑑 (Encyclopedia of Noh Plays or A Great Mirror of Noh Pictures or A Great Collection of Noh Pictures)
 Artist 
 Tsukioka Kōgyo (1869-1927)
 Signature 
 Kōgyo
 Seal
rai
(Thunder) seal, seal no. 12, p. 170 in The Beauty of Silence: Nō and Nature Prints by Tsukioka Kōgyo (1869-1927), Robert Schaap & J. Thomas Rimer, Hotei Publishing, 2010.
 Date December 25, 1926
 Edition unknown
 Publisher Seibi Shoten (or Seibi Shoin), Tokyo
 Carver Uchida Eikichi
 Printer Yoshida Takesaburō
 Impression excellent
 Colors excellent
 Condition excellent - 1 pin hole upper left; binding holes right side;  not backed
 Genre ukiyo-e; 能楽図絵 Nōgaku zue [Noh play picture]
 Miscellaneous print #44
 Format oban yoko-e
 H x W Paper 10 x 14 5/8 in. (25.4 x 37.1 cm)
 Collections This Print 
 Reference Literature