Matsumoto Yonesaburo as Kewaizaka no Shosho in the Play "Katakiuchi Noriyaibanashi"

This Toshusai Sharaku okubi-e shows the onnagata Matsumoto Yonesaburo as the courtesan Kewaizaka no Shosho in the kabuki play Katakiuchi Noriyaibanashi (A Medley of Tales of Revenge). The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds the impression, attributing its publication to Tsutaya Juzaburo as part of Sharaku's brief but defining Edo ukiyo-e career; the Met's date of 1784 reflects an earlier catalogue entry, while the broader literature places the design within Sharaku's 1794-1795 publishing run.

The portrait is built around the courtesan's quiet, contained face. Yonesaburo's features are drawn with the painted brows lifted high on the forehead, the small reddened mouth, and the smooth white-painted skin that the onnagata role required, but Sharaku also records the slight thickness of the upper lip and the carriage of the jaw that mark the actor as male beneath the role. The eyes are downcast, the gaze directed off-print at an imagined interlocutor on stage. This combination of stillness and barely held emotion is exactly the kind of subtle, restrained acting for which Yonesaburo was known.

The courtesan's hair is dressed in elaborate combs and pins appropriate to her stage rank, and the kimono is patterned with motifs whose color blocks have been carefully aligned through the keyblock. Color is held to soft pinks, deep reds, and muted grounds, with the dark mica background common to Tsutaya's premium yakusha-e providing the depth against which the white face reads almost as a relief carving.

As a small piece of Edo ukiyo-e, the sheet demonstrates how Sharaku used okubi-e to take the conventions of courtesan portraiture out of the bijinga tradition and into a more analytic study of how a male actor sustains a female role. The Metropolitan Museum of Art retains the impression in its Asian Art collection.