Sakamoto Otasuku

Sakamoto Otasuku, dated 1884, is an early career print by Mizuno Toshikata held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession reference at metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/55189). The 1884 date places this work near the beginning of Toshikata's independent activity as a Meiji prints designer, only a few years after he completed formal study as a Yoshitoshi student; he is recorded in biographies as having entered Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's studio around 1881. The print bears the marks of that fresh apprenticeship: the figural composition relies on the kind of single-subject biographical focus Yoshitoshi had used in his series of historical and contemporary worthies, and the title — simply the subject's name — declares that the print's value lies in commemorating a specific person. Sakamoto Otasuku is not as widely documented as his near-namesake Sakamoto Ryoma, but the print participates in a wider Meiji-period publishing practice of celebrating military officers, restoration loyalists, and other public figures who could be tied to the new national project. Toshikata would later become best known for senso-e prints of the Sino-Japanese War and for his bijinga series of the 1890s, but the Metropolitan's example shows how early he was already capable of disciplined portrait work. As a primary document of the artist's maturation, the print is informative: it sits at the start of a career that would soon expand into history, genre, and reportage. The Met's catalog record provides the firm date that anchors this work in 1884.