55枚の小さな浮世絵
国立劇場所蔵（役者見立絵）三代歌川豊国画『東海道五十三次』
国立劇場所蔵の錦絵の中に、『五十三次』という題箋の付いた小さな画帖がある。 この画帖の中味は、三代歌川豊国の『役者見立東海道五十三次』であり、大判に倣って、日本橋から京までの５５駅についての美しい役者絵と目録である。中判の和紙一枚に人物が向き合うように、二駅二人ずつ描かれ、そこに豊国の落款・彫師・版元・改印が記されている。 その和紙を二つ折りにし、順に貼り合わせた折本型の画帖である。正編ともいえる大判の『役者見立東海道五十三次』が嘉永５年６月に終了した後、同年の９月から１２月にかけて作成され、翌年９月に最後の「京」と「目録」が作られた。 この画帖の重要なところは、今のところ、この一冊しか確認できないことである。 大判とは違う趣があり、貴重な作品といえよう。
Fifty-five Sheets of Small Color Woodblock Prints
“Tôkaidô-Gojûsan-Tsugi” by Utagawa Toyokuni III
The National Theatre owns a small picture album of color woodblock prints with a title cartouche reading "Gojûsantugi (‘Fifty-Five Stations')". Each of the fifty-five prints in the album depicts beautiful Kabuki actors set against the backdrop of each of the fifty-five rest stations along the Tôkaidô route, starting from the Nihonbashi-station and ending in Kyoto. These prints are similar in compositional style to those found depicted on the ôban (large format) print series Yakusha-Mitate Tôkaidô-Gojûsan-Tsugi by Utagawa Toyokuni III.
On each chûban (medium format) sheet of the album, two actors are positioned facing one another, each actor standing in front of a station. Each sheet bears Toyokuni's signature and seal, the carver's and the publisher's names, and a censor's seal. The sheets have been folded into two halves which have been pasted together back to back in the prescribed order, thus creating an orihon-gata (accordion style) picture album.
After the completion of the publication of the ôban series of Yakusha-Mitate Tôkaidô-Gojûsan-Tsugi in the sixth month of 1852, the artist worked on this smaller print version between the ninth and twelfth months of the same year. The ninth month of the following year saw the publication of the last print, i.e. the station ‘Kyoto', as well as the ‘Table of Contents (Mokuroku)'. This is the only extant print album of its kind. Its rather unusual format that are different from those found on the ôban prints deserves scholarly attention.