Osome and Hisamatsu

Category

Library Item

Item no

342

Title

Osome and Hisamatsu

Description

Actor portrait of Iwai Kumesaburo III playing the roles of Osome and Hisamatsu in a quick-change performance. He is shown in character, as each lover, walking under a shared parasol.
The love story of Osome and Hisamatsu, which ends in a tragic double suicide, was based on real events that took place in Osaka in 1708. The tragedy was first recorded in a popular ballad before being dramatized for Osaka Kabuki in 1710 and Edo Kabuki in 1719. Love suicide plays (shinjumono) were very popular with Edo audiences.
The story's outline varies depending on the adaptation but generally 'Osome and Hisamatsu' is a tale of mutual love frustrated by social status. Osome is the daughter of a rich oil merchant and money lender, and Hisamatsu is her father's lowly apprentice. When Osome learns that her parents intend to arrange for her to marry another, she runs away. Hisamatsu tries to persuade Osome to return home but Osome is resolved to die rather than marry another man.

Artist / maker

Kunisada I (Toyokuni III)

Date

1849

Size

37.5 x 26.5 cm.

Type

Wood cut

Location

Art and Design Library

The following information appears on the print:

Signed: Kochoro Toyokuni ga
Artist: Utagawa Kunisada (Toyokuni III)
Censor's seals: Watanabe and Kinugasa (1849 - 1850).

This Kabuki play was based on real events that took place in Osaka in 1708, and is a tale of mutual love frustrated by social status. Osome runs away from home when her parent decide to marry her to another suitor having decided that Hisamatsu is not wealthy enough for their daughter. Hisamatsu tries to persuade Osome to return home, but she has decided that she would rather die than agree to marry another man.
The tragedy was first recorded in a popular ballad before being dramatized in Osakan Kabuki in 1710 and Edo Kabuki in 1719. Chikamatsu Monzaemon, a popular playwright who created many plays for the Kabuki and Bunraku puppet theatres inspired by the double suicide theme, produced a version of this story in 1780.
The dramatist Tsuruya Namboku IV, pioneer of the raw life domestic drama genre (kizewamono), transposed the action and characters to a contemporary Edo setting in his production of the play. His drama premiered at the Nakamura Theatre in November 1825 and proved an incredible success, spawning many adaptations.
This is one of a set of 50 prints donated to Edinburgh City Libraries by Marie Ferguson Dyer in honour of her father Henry Dyer. Dyer was a Scottish engineer who became the first Principal of the Imperial College of Engineering in Tokyo in 1872.

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