Background
The play is one of the so-called Kurofune Chûemon mono (黒船忠右衛門物), various puppet and kabuki dramas about Kurofune Chûemon, head of a gang of otokodate (chivalrous commoners 男伊達 or 男作). Inspired by actual events during the first half of the seventeenth century, these dramas featured clashes between two gangs of otokodate, one led by Kurofune Chûemon (黒船忠右衛門), the other by Gokumon Shôbei. (ごく門ノ庄兵衛). Among these Kurofune Chûemon mono, Sugata kurabe deiri no minato (Contest of appearances, quarrel at the harbor, 容競出入湊), was the first to introduce the celebrated role of Yakko no Koman (奴の小万), an eccentric female otokodate, based on the real-life Miyoshi Oyuki (1729–1806), who was the adopted daughter of a family running the Kizuya, a medicinal herb store in Osaka. In the Sugata kurabe version of this genre, Koman's father wants her to marry, against her wishes, Gorohachi (an ally of Chûemon), but he is in love with the courtesan Takigawa. Shôbei, in turn, is also infatuated with Takigawa. When Takigawa escapes from the pleasure quarter to see Gorohachi, who is hiding in Chûemon's house, Shôbei follows her and confronts Chûemon. Shôbei then attacks Chûemon and kills him.
Design
Hokushû's diptych depicts a confrontation between the rival otokodate Gokumon and Kurofune.
The inscription on the bridge post reads "Shinmachi-bashi" (Shinmachi Bridge), putting the action close to the theater district. The signboards on the left sheet have inscriptions about the (1R) Kitano Tokushoin (北野徳勝院) temple, Tenmangû Shrine (天満宮); (2R) the publisher Tenki (天喜) and the date (3rd month, 15th day, corresponding to the kabuki staging of Otoko ippiki sukui no tatehiki) and theater (Kado no Shibai, 角芝居); (3R) Seki-chô (checkpoint register 関帳) or barrier ledger, one of about 50 different checkpoints in the country during the Edo period.
The secondary publisher seal read as "Yamaichi" (山市)
) on the left sheet designates a little known publisher active circa 1822-1824.
There are three symbols on Shobei's green robe: a sickle (kama), a partly visible circle (wa), and the hiragana character for nu, combining to make a rebus for kamawanu, meaning "It doesn't matter." This was a popular and mildly irreverant expression during the Edo period, and a common textile design pattern.
Our impression has excellent color and is finely printed. The difference in the colors of the stone wall between the two sheets is a very common type of printing artifact in ukiyo-e printmaking. It would seem that in some instances, sheets in polyptychs were not entirely printed by the same artisan, and so color variations for particular elements of design (foregrounds, skies, architectural elements, and so on) were the result of more than one hand (and mind) selecting colors for two or more sheets.
References: IKBYS-I, no. 146; WAS-IV, no. 177 (faded)
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