Actor Sakakiyama Sangoro II as Michinaga's Daughter Princess Otae

This 1794 [yakusha-e](/glossary/yakusha-e) by Toshusai Sharaku, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, presents the onnagata Sakakiyama Sangoro II in the role of Princess Otae, daughter of the Heian-era statesman Fujiwara no Michinaga, in a contemporary kabuki dramatization of court intrigue. The sheet is one of the okubi-e portraits Sharaku produced for Tsutaya Juzaburo during his brief but defining tenure as a designer of Edo [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e).

In this composition, Sharaku turns his attention to the conventions of female impersonation. Sangoro II's face is drawn with painted brows lifted high on the forehead, a small reddened mouth, and the smooth white-painted complexion appropriate to a noblewoman of the Heian court. At the same time, the artist refuses to dissolve the actor's male physiology into an idealized mask: the line of the jaw remains heavier than the female stage type strictly demands, and the neck retains a width that records the working body beneath the role. This double reading, of the role and of the actor sustaining it, is the signature analytical move of Sharaku's okubi-e.