The Actor Onoe Tamizo III in the role of Otsuma

The print presents Onoe Tamizo III performing the role of Otsuma—a female character whose name appears in several jidaimono and sewamono dramas, notably as the loyal wife in love-suicide plays of the Chikamatsu repertoire. As an onnagata depiction, the portrait emphasizes the constructed femininity of the role through delicate nishiki-e printing of the kimono pattern, the pink and white tones of the painted face, and the precise rendering of the actor's wig. Shunsen typically composed such portraits at bust length, framing the subject against a flat colored ground or a faint mica wash that lends the figure a quiet monumentality. The work belongs to the yakusha-e revival that Shunsen led from the 1920s through the war years, in which the publisher Watanabe Shôzaburô paired the artist's drawings with skilled baren and block-cutting craftsmen working in Tokyo to maintain the technical standards of pre-modern woodblock production.