The Actor Matsumoto Koshiro IV and a geisha, from an untitled series of prints showing Actors in private life
- Date:
- c. 1783
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print; hosoban
- Source:
- Art Institute of Chicago
The Actor Matsumoto Koshiro IV and a Geisha, from an untitled series of prints showing actors in private life, is a 1778 woodblock print by Torii Kiyonaga, the Torii school master whose late-Edo work bridged kabuki imagery and [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga). As fourth head of the Torii school, Kiyonaga had inherited responsibility for the school's kabuki signboards and actor prints, but for this off-stage series he set his theatrical sitters within the everyday world that occupied his Edo bijin-ga. Here he pairs Matsumoto Koshiro IV - one of the great onnagata-versatile actors of the era - with a geisha, depicting them not in the formal exaggeration of a stage role but in the relaxed register of a private encounter at a teahouse or rented room. The composition relies on his mature manner: tall figures arranged in calm proximity, kimono patterns carefully orchestrated to differentiate the actor's clothing from the geisha's, and a restrained [nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e) palette that suits the intimate scene. The actor's identity is keyed by physiognomy and pose rather than by stage costume, anticipating later genres of off-duty actor portraiture. The print is preserved at the Art Institute of Chicago, where it sits among Kiyonaga's actor-and-courtesan compositions and helps document the artist's two-track engagement with the kabuki world. It illustrates how a Torii school designer could fold the theater's public personalities into the visual conventions of Edo bijin-ga, producing prints that read simultaneously as celebrity portrait and as image of contemporary city life.
c. 1782
Color woodblock print; chuban
c. 1787
Color woodblock print; center and right sheets of oban triptych
c. 1786
Color woodblock print; koban
c. 1787
Color woodblock print; oban triptych
The Actor Matsumoto Koshiro IV and a geisha, from an untitled series of prints showing Actors in private life was created by Torii Kiyonaga (鳥居清長) in c. 1783.
The Actor Matsumoto Koshiro IV and a geisha, from an untitled series of prints showing Actors in private life depicts sumo.
