Yamashina Shirojuro in the Role of Nagoya Sanzaemon

Held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and dated to 1794, this Toshusai Sharaku yakusha-e shows the actor Yamashina Shirojuro in the role of Nagoya Sanzaemon, a stage character associated with the long-running otokodate (chivalrous commoner) versus samurai-bully dramas that defined much of late-Edo kabuki. The print is part of the okubi-e series Sharaku produced under Tsutaya Juzaburo and stands among the central documents of his Edo ukiyo-e career.

Sharaku draws Shirojuro with the dense, descriptive frankness that distinguishes his bust portraits from the prettier actor prints of his contemporaries. The face is broad, the jaw set, the brows low, and the mouth held in a deliberate, slightly opened line. The eyes are narrowed and asymmetrical in direction, suggesting that the character is sizing up a rival who stands just outside the print. The lines along the nose and around the mouth are not smoothed; the artist registers the working actor's face rather than the idealized hero his role might otherwise have demanded.

The role of Nagoya Sanzaemon calls for a confident chonin-style male figure, and Shirojuro's hair is dressed with sakayaki and topknot in that register, with the firm keyblock work giving every hairline its weight. The robe carries simple, bold pattern blocks at the shoulder and chest, the patterning held back so that the face dominates. The dark mica background common to Tsutaya's premium yakusha-e provides a hushed depth behind the figure.

The sheet sits comfortably within the small corpus of Sharaku's surviving designs, and it shows how he treated the otokodate-style male role with the same analytic attention he extended to courtesans and senior warriors. The Metropolitan Museum of Art retains this impression as part of its Asian Art holdings, where it remains one of the accessible examples of late eighteenth-century Edo ukiyo-e at its most observed.