One of 261 prints from the series N?gakuzue (Illustrations of Noh). The print depicts a scene from the play Genj? (also seen written as Kenj?) sometimes attributed to the playwright Kawakami kannushi (dates unknown) in which the sea dragon-god appears carrying a famous lute. This is one of several prints in the series in which the artist uses the actual stage as the background. The famous lute player Moronaga is about to sail for China for further training on the instrument in that country, when he stops for a night at Suma Bay to view the moon. He plays a piece on a lute for the old couple in whose house he is lodging, and is surprised to find them so appreciative of the music that when a shower of rain patters down on the roof they hasten to spread rush mats there to deaden the sound. He therefore asks them to play a piece, and when they play on the lute and Japanese hard their performance is so skillful that he abandons altogether his plan of going to study in China. At this, the old couple reveal that they are in fact the Emperor Murakami and his consort, the Lady Nashitsubo, and that the Emperor had played the melody on the famous lute called Genj? in the hope that after hearing it Moronaga would give up his journey abroad. They then vanish, but the Emperor reappears shortly afterwards and summons a dragon-god from the sea. He retrieves from him another famous lute, Shishi-maru, which had been seized by the draon-god when it was on its way to Japan with Genj?, and this he presents to Moronaga.Format is Oban yoko-e. Uses metallic paints. Some toning and soiling.

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