The Actors Anegawa Daikichi as Sankatsu and Bando Hikosaburo II as Hanshichi

This print depicts a scene from a Kabuki play based on the real-life love suicide of the courtesan Minoya Sankatsu and her married lover, sake merchant Akaneya Hanshichi. This event, which took place in Osaka’s Sennichi cemetery on a winter night in 1695, became famous as the subject of numerous puppet and Kabuki plays. Here, the two lovers stand with their hands clasped, just before they depart for the cemetery in the final scene. Hanshichi wears a merchant’s ledger hung from his obi, and he carries a brush, with which he seems to have written a verse on Sankatsu’s cloudpatterned inner sleeve. Above the two figures are the actors’ names and roles as well as the verse:
Aisode ya
fude ni kokoro wo
fukumu sumi
Sleeves meeting;
In the brush
Is heart-filled ink
The second part of the poem refers to Hanshichi’s suicide note, which is read in an emotional scene late in the play.
Crests also identify the actors: Hanshichi wears the crane roundel of Bandō Hikosaburō II and Sankatsu the ivy crest of Anegawa Daikichi. While the exact title of the play shown here is unknown, a clue exists in a closely related design by Kiyomitsu in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (11.18999). There a possible play title—Au yo no meoto boshi (Night Meeting of the Star-Crossed Lovers)—is provided in place of the verse in the Grabhorn example, and the actors’ crests appear above their names.