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Lot 21*

Kawanabe Kyosai (1831-1889)
Mid to late 19th century

Fine Japanese Art
5 November 2009, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street

£8,000 - £12,000

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Kawanabe Kyosai (1831-1889)

Mid to late 19th century
Kakejiku, in ink and colour on silk, depicting a Kyogen actor wearing a Oto mask, eboshi and holding a sakaki and suzu, performing a Kagura dance; signed Seisei Kyosai ga with seal, with double wood storage box. 117cm x 54½cm (46in x 21½in). (3).

Footnotes

狂言図　河鍋暁斎　一幅　絹本着色　19世紀中期-後期

Provenance: a Japanese private collection.

Oto (as she is more properly called among aficionados of the theatre) is a popular mask in Kyogen, just as Otafuku/Okame, its counterpart is a popular mask in Noh theatre. Kyosai had a particular fondness for painting good-natured, young but ugly women, characteristics which both Otafuku and Oto symbolised. The character features prominently in the artist's oeuvre and complemented Kyosai's repertoire of eccentric, comic and absurd figure subject matter.

As presented here, the Oto mask is represented as a homely woman with pudgy cheeks, button nose and little pig eyes, a character who was always embroiled in ridiculous situations as was typical of themes pertaining to Kyogen theatre and indeed of the artist himself, who never took himself seriously and who was equally as famous for his love of sake as for his paintings.

Compare also with other paintings depicting Otafuku by Kyosai, see the Exhibition Catalogue published by the Kyoto National Museum 2008, Bridge to Modernity; Kyosai's Adventures in Painting pl. nos.32 and 122; whilst another painting by Kyosai featuring Usume performing a Kagura dance, was sold in these rooms, 6th November 2007, lot 198.

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