Comment - Kabuki scene of five men ready to celebrate the New Year holiday. The actor at left carries a miniature treasure boat made of braided rice straw over his shoulder, while the kabuki actor beside him holds a beautiful Edo kite  ("Edo-tako", "江戸凧") of a carp leaping up a stream. The kite is correctly braidled and has a hummer (kite musical instrument). The hummer is to be seen behind the upper guy-rope. At right, a commoner holds a pole decorated with fringe and another actor carries a green basket laded with vegetables and a lobster over his shoulders. The man in the center frowns unhappily, holding a small notebook in one hand and a brush in the other. He wears a dark blue quilted coat with a pine tree design over a checked kimono, a dotted towel wrapped about his head.

Woodblock triptych print from an album of 78 prints. Each of all three panels may stand for its own as kabuki actor portraits. Their names and represented kabuki characters are written within the green and yellow cassettes (actor's role and name).

The actor on the right panel is from the Narikomaya (成駒屋) kabuki actor's guild, to be identified by the white kanji on his red-brown Yukata (traditional Japanese clothing). An actor's guild name or "yagô" is the equivalent of a store name for actors. During the feudal times, lower class people were not allowed to hold family names. It was however possible for a merchant or an employee , or for instance as a kabuki actor, to use his store name as a family name. The kabuki actors of Narikomaya guild all used the "family name" 'Nakamura'.
The actors are (from right to left) Nakamura Shikan (中村芝翫), Ichikawa Sadanji (市川左団次), Ichikawa Danjuro (市川団十郎), Onoe Kikugorō (尾上菊五郎), and Bando Hikosaburo (坂東彦三郎). Their rôles, the series title, and the blue-white-green title cassette (left panel, upper left) are not read.


Series - not read


Artist - see Biography


Signature - "Toyohara Kunichika hitzu" ("豊原国周筆", drawn by Toyohara Kunichika) on every panel (white cassete, with artists seal)


Publisher - Yamamura Kinzaburō (山村金三郎) on center panel and corresponding seal on right panel; carver: Sakae (彫 栄)


Image Size - 71.8 X 35.6 cm (28 1/4" x 14" ) + margins as shown


Condition - triptych; nishiki-e (cloured woodblock); Vertical ôban (ôban tate-e); three panels attached at the seams