This standing portrait features the actor Bandō Hikosaburō III in his best-known role, Ōboshi Yuranosuke. The scene has been identified as belonging to a performance of Kanadehon Chūshingura at the Miyako Theater in the fourth month of 1795. Viewers of the time would have been able to recognize this as a moment from the seventh act, set at the Ichiriki teahouse. Clues include the actor’s fashionable hairstyle, known as honda mage—shaved far back at the top and sides, with only a narrow topknot projecting forward—and his costume, which consists of a long jacket (haori) worn with two swords, one tucked into his sash, the other held in one hand.20 This is the right-hand sheet of a triptych, a complete example of which is preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston collection (21.7314–21.7316).
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