Actor Ichikawa Monnosuke I as a Flower Vendor
- Date:
- early 18th century
- Medium:
- Hand-colored woodblock print (urushi-e); ink and color on paper
- Source:
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Actor Ichikawa Monnosuke I as a Flower Vendor, dated to circa 1715, situates Torii Kiyoharu within the founding generation of the Torii school of [yakusha-e](/glossary/yakusha-e) during the early Kyoho era. Ichikawa Monnosuke I, a developing male-role specialist of Edo kabuki in the second decade of the eighteenth century, here appears in the disguised role of a hanauri or itinerant flower vendor, a humble character type that the kabuki repertoire reserved for moments of comic display or concealed identity. The flower-seller disguise allowed an actor to enter a play in modest dress while carrying the recognizable shoulder-pole and basket of seasonal blossoms that announced his trade to the audience. Kiyoharu draws the standing figure in the disciplined bold contour that the Torii circle established for its early-eighteenth-century yakusha-e, the line muscular without veering into the violent hyotan-ashi mimizu-gaki manner that Kiyonobu I and Kiyomasu I had reserved for aragoto subjects. The print belongs to the tan-e mode of early Torii production, in which orange-red tan pigment derived from lead was applied by hand to selected areas of an otherwise monochrome impression, enriching costume and prop details against the otherwise lightly inked ground. The [hosoban](/glossary/hosoban) or wide-bordered tate-e format frames the actor full-length, with the flower basket and pole distributed across the composition as identifying properties. Kiyoharu worked alongside Kiyomasu II and Kiyotada as part of the second generation of Torii image-makers, continuing the workshop's commercial monopoly on theatrical advertising and single-sheet actor portraiture for the three licensed Edo theaters. The Torii school's working relationship with the kabuki houses depended on producing such commemorative portraits in close consultation with the actor lineages, with costume detail and stance fidelity essential for the prints to function as both performance souvenir and ongoing publicity. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, preserves this impression (source_url https://collections.mfa.org/objects/177330) as a representative document of the disguised-vendor onnagata subgenre in the Kiyoharu hand at the moment of its early-eighteenth-century definition within the Torii workshop's broader yakusha-e production.
Actor Ichikawa Monnosuke I as a Flower Vendor was created by Torii Kiyoharu (鳥居清春) in early 18th century.
Actor Ichikawa Monnosuke I as a Flower Vendor depicts birds & flowers.
