'Xylophone Song' - Man Playing Musical Instrument

Category

Library Item

Item no

316

Title

'Xylophone Song' (Mokkin no uta)

Description

'This shows a Kabuki actor in the role of a blind musician playing a Chinese-style wooden xylophone and singing the song transcribed above. This was one role typically performed as part of a series of seven or more done with quick changes of costume (nana-gawari).' [Information supplied by T. Clark]
The play's central character was Tenjiku Tokubei, a boatman from China with the power to change into a giant frog.
The original owner of the print may have practised singing the 'Xylophone Song' at home for his or her own entertainment.

Artist / maker

Kuniyoshi

Date

1850

Size

35.5 x 24 cm.

Type

Wood cut

Location

Art and Design Library

The following information appears on the print:

Signature: Ichiyusai Kuniyoshi ga
Censor's Seals: Mera and Murata (1847 - 1850)

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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'Xylophone Song' - Man playing musical instrument