Actor as Kimon no Kihei

This Osaka kamigata-e yakusha-e by Ryūsai Shigeharu, dated before 1826 and held by the Cleveland Museum of Art (accession 1976.68), depicts an actor in the role of Kimon no Kihei. The pre-1826 dating places the print in Shigeharu's early single-sheet period — possibly still signed under his earlier art name Nagasaki Kunishige, which he used from 1820 until adopting Ryūsai Shigeharu in spring 1825 — and the work belongs to the formative phase before his peak years of 1829-1831. Kimon no Kihei is a kabuki villain-role character, and the half-length composition follows the kamigata-e template of careful inscription of role and actor with attention to facial expression as the carrier of character. The print is preserved as a color woodblock print on paper at the Cleveland Museum of Art (accession 1976.68), part of the museum's small but representative cluster of Osaka kamigata-e acquired in the mid-1970s alongside its Shunkōsai Hokushū and Gigadō Ashiyuki holdings. Together these prints give Cleveland's collection a coherent sample of the principal Osaka actor-print designers of the 1820s and 1830s, with Shigeharu represented by both his early period (1976.68) and his mature period (1975.69).