Arashi Rikan II as Danshichi Kurōbei in "Mirror of Naniwa: The Summer Festival" (1832): Art, History and Details

Arashi Rikan II as Danshichi Kurōbei in "Mirror of Naniwa: The Summer Festival" (1832) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Shunbaisai Hokuei (Japanese, d. 1837).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This print shows Arashi Rikan II (1788–1837) acting in a Kabuki play put on at the Chikugoza Theater in Osaka in 1832. Rikan’s character, Danshichi Kurōbei, was among the otokodate roles, or men who stood up for those without much power in society. Mirror of Naniwa: The Summer Festival remains popular today and has the most well-known Kabuki murder scene, in which Danshichi kills his devious father-in-law, Mikawaya Giheiji. Rikan strikes multiple dramatic poses, called mie, during the episode, which features real mud on the stage.

Object facts

• Title: Arashi Rikan II as Danshichi Kurōbei in "Mirror of Naniwa: The Summer Festival"
• Date: 1832
• Creator attribution: Shunbaisai Hokuei (Japanese, d. 1837)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Print
• Technique: color woodblock print
• Dimensions: 35.7 x 24.4 cm (14 1/16 x 9 5/8 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1980.84

A detail from the museum

This belongs to a category of Japanese prints called “actor images” (yakusha-e or 役者絵), which were collected by fans of popular Kabuki actors.

Collection credit

Edward L. Whittemore Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1980.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 68, no. 6 (June 1981): 163–219.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.