The Actor Arashi Kitsusaburō I as Nagai Genzaburō

This 1821 yakusha-e by Utagawa Kunihiro, held by the Minneapolis Institute of Art (accession number 22588), portrays the celebrated Osaka actor Arashi Kitsusaburō I (formerly Arashi Kichisaburō II) in the role of Nagai Genzaburō. Arashi Kitsusaburō I was one of the dominant male leads of the Osaka kabuki stage in the late 1810s and early 1820s, and his death the same year — 1821 — would generate a wave of memorial prints (shini-e) from across the Osaka kamigata-e community. Kunihiro's portrait captures the actor in costume and role, executed as a color woodblock print (nishiki-e) in the standard Osaka yakusha-e format. The role of Nagai Genzaburō belongs to the dense network of supporting and lead samurai characters that filled Osaka kabuki bills in the Bunsei era, and Kunihiro's careful attention to facial expression and the precise inscription of the actor's name reflect the documentary mission characteristic of kamigata-e yakusha-e: a portrait was not a generic celebrity image but a record of a specific actor in a specific role in a specific production. The Minneapolis Institute of Art's holding of the print places it within one of the largest American collections of Osaka kamigata-e, and its 1821 date situates the work at the height of Arashi Kitsusaburō I's celebrity in the final months of his career.