Yamatoya Tojaku (The Actor Iwai Hanshiro IV as Otoma, Daughter of Ohina from Inamuragasaki in Kamakura) (Yondai-me Iwai Hanshiro no Kamakura Inamuragasaki no Ohina musume Otoma)

Yamatoya Tojaku is the poetic stage name, or haimyo, of Iwai Hanshiro IV, one of the leading onnagata of late eighteenth-century Edo kabuki. In this Toshusai Sharaku portrait, Hanshiro IV appears as Otoma, daughter of Ohina from Inamuragasaki in Kamakura, a role drawn from the elaborate domestic and historical narratives that filled the Edo theatrical season. Sharaku's treatment of female roles is among the more analytically interesting strands of his yakusha-e output, since the artist neither dissolves the actor's male features into pure femininity nor exaggerates them into caricature, choosing instead a precisely observed middle ground that gives his onnagata portraits their distinctive psychological resonance. The composition aligns with the okubi-e tradition, concentrating attention on the head, gaze, and upper-body posture, with carefully drawn contours of the brow and lips and a controlled palette that emphasizes the actor's physical presence within the role. The Art Institute of Chicago preserves this impression among its substantial Sharaku holdings, providing scholars with primary material for the study of late Edo theatrical portraiture. Published by Tsutaya Juzaburo, whose firm Tsutaya supplied the financial backing for Sharaku's brief but transformative career, the print uses careful pigment selection and precise block registration to produce a luxury object in the broader landscape of Edo ukiyo-e. The work remains a primary record of both the actor's range and the artist's formal ambitions in the closing decade of the eighteenth century.