Artist: Katsukawa Shun'ei
Date: 1794
Technique: Woodblock Print
Close-up portraits known as okubi-e (“large head pictures”) originated with artists of the Katsukawa school in the late 1780s. This dramatic double portrait depicts a moment in a Kabuki play featuring the actor Nakamura Nakazo II, playing a man named Aramaki Mimishiro in a plain cloth cap, and Nakamura Noshio II, a specialist in female roles, as Konohana, daughter of one of Japan’s famous poets, Ki Tsurayuki. Kabuki fans would have appreciated the contrast between Nakazo II’s broad face and prominent nose and Noshio II’s more delicate features. The only known surviving impression, this print retains much of its purples, pinks, and delicate dayflowerblue background.
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