Kitao Shigemasa 北尾重政

The Treasury of Loyal Retainers (Chusingura) tells the tale of the forty-seven ronin, or masterless samurai, who diligently plotted to avenge the death of their master, Asano Naganori. Asano was humiliated by Kira Yoshinaka, an official at the court of the shogun; after Asano drew his sword against Kira, he was ordered to commit suicide. Two years later, Asano’s loyal retainers stormed Kira’s mansion and killed him.

In this illustration, Yuranosuke, one of the plotters, realizes that he has been observed reading a secret letter and leads Okaru, the young woman spying on him, down a ladder. Okaru has just been sold as a courtesan and is in service at the Ichiriki Teahouse in the Gion district in Kyoto, where Yuranosuke had been pretending dissipation and complete indifference to revenge.

The small title label at the upper right corner identifies this scene of debauchery as that of Act Seven from the Kabuki play, Chushingura, based on a story about forty-seven samurai who, despite terrible hardship, complete a vendetta against the lord who caused their master to commit suicide.

The leader and symbol of unswerving loyalty, Yuranosuke, must pretend to have fallen into a life of irresponsible pleasure in order to waylay suspicions regarding his true intentions. At the Ichiriki Teahouse, he flirts with the courtesan Okaru, whom he suspects has spied him reading an important letter. The folding fan in Yuranosuke's hand, normally emblematic of courtly elegance, here acccentuates the hero's show of lecherous frivolity.