About This Print
One of 120 prints issued as part of the series Nōgaku hyakuban (One Hundred Prints of Noh), it depicts a scene from the play Torioibume by an unknown playwright1. This print was originally released by the publisher Matsuki Heikichi in the thirty-seventh installment of prints in this series. This series' prints were offered in monthly installments consisting of three prints packaged in an envelope with additional descriptive information.11 P.G. O'Neill credits this play to Kongō Yagorō, but more modern sources state the playwright is unknown.
2“The series Nogaku hyakuban (100 No plays) by Tsukioka Kogyo (1869-1927),” Claus-Peter Schulz, Andon 67, Society for Japanese Arts, p. 28.
The Play - Torioibume (Bird-Chasing Boat)
Source: A Guide to No, P.G. O'Neill, Hinoki Shoten, 1929, p.196.
Characters
The Play - Torioibume (Bird-Chasing Boat)
Source: A Guide to No, P.G. O'Neill, Hinoki Shoten, 1929, p.196.Characters
Act 1:
Ko-kata - the child Hanawaka
Shite - his mother
Waki-tsure - Sako-no-jō
Waki - a landowner, father of Hanawaka
Kyōgen - a servant
Act 2:
Ko-kata - Hanawaka
Ko-kata - Hanawaka
Nochi-shite - his mother
Waki-tsure - Sako-no-jō
A Kyūshū landowner has been away in the capital for more than ten years because of a lawsuit, leaving his wife and child behind. The tutor, Sako-no-jō, sets the boy to work driving the birds away from the crops and, when his mother objects, threatens to turn her out unless she helps too. Eventually, the master returns and as he approaches his village, stops to watch a boat carrying some bird-scarers. When it comes closer, however, and he realizes that it is his own wife and child who are being made to do the work, he is seized with rage and only prevented from killing Sako-no-jō by his wife who is ready to forgive the man for what he has done.
A modern performance of the play
Print Details
| IHL Catalog | #1303 |
| Title | Torioibune [also seen transcribed as Tori-oi-bune and Torioi] 鳥追舟 (Bird-Chasing Boat) |
| Series | Nōgaku hyakuban 能楽百番 (One Hundred Prints of Noh or One Hundred Noh Plays) |
| Artist | Tsukioka Kōgyo (1869-1927) |
| Signature |  |
| Seal |  |
| Date | June 1926 |
| Edition | unknown |
| Publisher | Matsuki Heikichi (Daikokuya) |
| Carver | |
| Impression | excellent |
| Colors | excellent |
| Condition | excellent - not backed; slightly trimmed; minor paper remnants verso from former mounting |
| Genre | ukiyo-e |
| Miscellaneous | |
| Format | oban tate-e |
| H x W Paper | 14 7/8 x 10 in. (37.8 x 25.4 cm) |
| Collections This Print | Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon 1981:7.36; Art Institute of Chicago 1943.834.2; Ritsumeikan University AcNo. arcUP1445 CoGNo. arcUP1343 AlGNo. arcUP1343; Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Scripps College 2007.1.52 |
| Reference Literature | The Beauty of Silence: Nō and Nature Prints by Tsukioka Kōgyo (1869-1927), Robert Schaap & J. Thomas Rimer, Hotei Publishing, 2010, p. 182. |
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