The Actor Nakayama Kumetaro II

Held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and dated to 1794, this Toshusai Sharaku okubi-e is a bust portrait of the onnagata Nakayama Kumetaro II. As one of the actor prints Sharaku designed for the Edo publisher Tsutaya Juzaburo during his short but extraordinary working life, the sheet stands as a primary document of how the okubi-e format was being pressed into new analytical use within the larger field of Edo [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e).

Sharaku approaches Kumetaro II with the unsoftened attention his name now stands for. The face is drawn with the high-painted brows, smooth pale complexion, and small reddened mouth that the female-role convention required, but the line of the jaw and the upper lip retain the natural weight that betrays the male actor sustaining the part. The head tilts very slightly to one side and the eyes are drawn in a steady, level gaze: a stillness that lets the portrait operate as a quiet inventory of the conventions of stage femininity rather than as an idealized beauty image.