The Actor Sakata Hangoro III as the Groom Abumizuri no Iwazo in Koriyama, Actually Kurisaka Taro Tomonori (SAndai-me Sakata Hangoro no Koriyama no Umakata Abumizuri no Iwazo, jitsuwa Kurisaka Taro Tomonori)

This portrait by Toshusai Sharaku depicts Sakata Hangoro III in the dual role of the stirrup-rubbing groom Iwazo, who is secretly the warrior Kurisaka Taro Tomonori, a quintessential kabuki convention in which a humble laborer is revealed as a samurai in disguise. The role offered Sharaku a productive subject for his yakusha-e practice: the friction between assumed identity and true nature, embodied in a single actor's body, suited his analytic style. Sakata Hangoro III specialized in villain roles, and Sharaku here turns his attention to the actor's distinctive jaw, set mouth, and the way costume hangs on his shoulders rather than presenting an idealized stage hero. The composition exhibits Sharaku's hallmark interest in the okubi-e mode of close, large-headed portraiture, even when accommodating fuller bodies, with sharp contour lines and carefully controlled color blocks that give the figure sculptural weight against an unmodulated background. Published by Tsutaya Juzaburo during Sharaku's brief ten-month career, the print is preserved in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, where curatorial documentation places it within the artist's most concentrated period of theatrical portraiture. The fascination of works like this lies not only in their visual precision but in their refusal to flatter, a refusal that may help explain why Sharaku's career ended as abruptly as it began. Within the wider tradition of Edo ukiyo-e, the print stands as a record of how kabuki transformed historical and legendary material into popular entertainment, and how a single artist could turn that entertainment into something approaching psychological analysis.