Utagawa's Lifetime Masterpiece, from the Japanese version of the Shuihu Zhuan
Utagawa Kunisada Japanese
Not on view
The Chinese vernacular novel known as the Shuihu Zhuan (Suikoden in Japanese), relating the adventures of the 108 heroes of Liangshan, became enormously popular in nineteenth-century Japan, and many Japanese novels imitating the Shuihu Zhuan were dramatized as Kabuki plays. Here, Kunisada has depicted ten major Kabuki actors in roles from a play by Yagura Suikoden.
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