Osagawa Tsuneyo II as the hairdresser O-Roku

Designed in 1794 and held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this Toshusai Sharaku okubi-e presents the onnagata Osagawa Tsuneyo II in the role of the hairdresser O-Roku, a chonin woman of the working ranks rather than a courtesan or noble lady. The sheet belongs to the body of yakusha-e Sharaku produced for the publisher Tsutaya Juzaburo and is one of the more socially specific portraits in his short Edo ukiyo-e career.

O-Roku is a working woman, and the role allowed Sharaku to depart from the elaborate signs of courtesan beauty. Tsuneyo II's face is drawn with painted brows and a small reddened mouth in the onnagata convention, but the head is tilted forward and the eyes look down and slightly to the side, as if attending to the hair of a customer just off-print. The artist preserves the slightly heavy jawline and the male-actor anatomy under the female makeup, an unsoftened reading that gives the portrait its quiet authority.

The hair is bound in a married chonin woman's style with simple pins, and the kimono is drawn in a restrained pattern appropriate to a working household, the keyblock cutting collar and shoulder lines with the same firm calligraphic precision Sharaku applied to higher-ranking roles. Color is held to soft pinks, muted reds, and patterned grounds, with the dark mica background characteristic of Tsutaya's premium yakusha-e providing the depth against which the white face reads in relief.

Within the wider history of Edo ukiyo-e, the print is a small but telling document of the genre's reach into the laboring chonin classes. Sharaku's willingness to give such characters the same okubi-e treatment as star courtesans or major samurai roles is one of the qualities that has kept his work in active discussion among modern collectors. The Metropolitan Museum of Art retains the impression.