Image is an example from the Art Institute of Chicago
OKUMURA TOSHINOBU (Worked c. 1725-1742)
The love affair of Osome and Hisamatsu, the clerk in her father’s oil shop, is a familiar one in Japan and has often been dramatized. Apparently, though not certainly, this print represents a scene from a drama with Arashi Wakano as Osome, and Takeshima Kozaemon as Hisamatsu. The mon of both actors appear on a fan forming part of the decoration of the youth’s garments.This is not the only puzzle that the print presents. One of the oil merchant’s books of account hung up in the shop is dated “Hoei shield, sho gatsu, kichi hi,”— the seventh year of Hoei, first month, lucky day, i.e. New Year’s, or according to our calendar, January 30, 1710. If this is a haphazard date it has no significance. But if it is the date when the print was designed the case is very different. So far as known Toshinobu did not work at that date. He could not then have been more than a young child if in fact he was the son of Okumura Masanobu, and Masanobu was born in 1685. The coloring of the print is in a style that was in vogue from about 1725 for at least a decade. How much earlier it came into use is not yet known.
Hoso-e. Urushi-e. Signed: Yamato Ga-ko (Japanese artist) Okumura Toshinobu hitsu. Publisher: Emi-ya.
Purchaser: Frederick W. Gookin
Price: $105.00