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Watōnai (Zheng Chenggong) Subduing the Tiger in Senrigatake Grove
about 1775
31.288
Not currently on view
Artwork Details
26-9/16 x 4-7/16 in. (image)
PeriodSigned by artist: Koryūsai zu
Accession NumberDaniel P. Erwin Fund
CopyrightPurchased by the John Herron Art Institute, Indianapolis, Indiana, now the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, in 1931.
和藤内千里ヶ竹で虎を退治する図
Watōnai (Zheng Chenggong) is based on the historical personality known in the West as Coxinga (Koxinga) 国性爺, who was the son of a Japanese mother and an exiled Chinese officer. Watōnai’s journey to China to restore the Ming dynasty by defeating the Manchu invaders was dramatized in a ningyō jōruri (puppet play), Kokusenya kassen 国性爺合戦, written in 1715. It was so popular that it ran for seventeen consecutive months, making it the longest-running play in Japanese history. It was adapted to kabuki in Kyoto the following year.
In a bamboo grove on the Chinese mainland, Watōnai and his mother were attacked by a ferocious tiger. Watōnai subdued the tiger using the special power of a sacred tablet bearing the name of the Japanese sun goddess, Amaterasu Ōmikami. When hunters of the tiger arrived and demanded the beast, Watōnai refused, and he and the tiger teamed up to defeat them. The hero’s eye makeup relates to the kabuki role.
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