Background
The original tale was an unproduced script called Asagao ("Morning glory") written by Chikamatsu Tokusô circa 1804-06. Later illustrated books and plays followed until Keisei tsukushi no tsumagoto (A courtesan playing the Tsukushi koto) was produced in 1814. The "Tsukushi" of the title refers to the former province now called Kyûshû, and it may also pun on tsukushi or monozukushi, a literary technique used in Edo-period drama to weave a catalog of related things into the dialog. A later and now better known version is called Shô utsushi Asagao nikki (Recreating the true diary of morning glory) — also written by Chikamatsu Tokusô for the puppet theater in 1832.
The story is set in motion when Miyagi Asojirô (宮木阿曽次郎) meets Akizuki's daughter Miyuki (秋月娘深雪) along the Uji River, a popular site for viewing and hunting fireflies during the evening cool of the summer months. They quickly fall in love, and he writes her a poem on a fan about a morning glory (asagao). Later, when they must part, she returns the fan as a keepsake. Asojirô then takes a new name, Komazawa Jirozaemon (駒沢次郎左衛門), after he is adopted by a wealthy family serving the same daimyô (lit., "great name": 大名) as the lord of Miyuki's family. Confusion ensues when he, as Jirozaemon, asks Miyuki's father for her hand in marriage. Mistakenly thinking her father will force her to marry a "stranger," Miyuki falls into despair and runs away.
Months pass and Miyuki, now a beggar blind from tears and grief, barely survives by playing the koto. Fondly remembering the poem, she calls herself Asagao. Asojirô coincidentally stops by an inn and finds the fan poem he wrote for Miyuki. When he learns that it belongs to "Asagao," he realizes she must be Miyuki. When Asojirô departs on his lord's business, he leaves Miyuki some money, medicine to restore her sight, and the keepsake fan upon which he has added his explanation for changing his name. After Miyuki learns the full story, she rushes after him, but there is a terrible storm and she is unable to overtake her lover. Having lost Asojirô a second time, she is about to drown herself when she is stopped by one of her father's retainers who has been continuously searching for her. She finally takes the medicine, whereupon her sight and former beauty are restored.
Design:
Ashiyuki's diptych depicts Komazawa (i.e., Asojirô) standing near the seated courtesan Segawa, dressed in elaborate robes worn only by higher-ranking denizens of a brothel or roadside teahouse (mizujaya 水茶屋). She grasps the sheathed sword and holds a folded sheaf of tissues, indicative of her sex work.
This design uses a standard and fairly dramatic perspective called "floating pictures" (uki-e 浮絵 or 浮繪), so called because the foreground appears to "float" before the receding space. It was, in effect, the Japanese style of modeling after single-point vanishing perspective learned from the West. In such views, the horizon line was typically low and the receding space deep and sharply converged. Also called "sunken pictures" (kubomi-e 窪み絵) for the apparent concavity of space, uki-e included both interior and landscape views.
Our impression is very good with colors that are strong and only slightly faded. The composition is an excellent example of an interior uki-e.
References: IKBYS-I, no. 221;
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