Actor Iwai Kumesaburō

A color ōban woodblock print of 1864 in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, this Actor Iwai Kumesaburō is a single-figure portrait of the celebrated onnagata Iwai Kumesaburō III in formal Edo theatrical dress. The 1864 dating — among the last seasons of Tokugawa-period theatrical production before the Meiji Restoration of 1868 reshuffled the kabuki houses and their actor rosters — places this sheet at the close of the late-Edo yakusha-e tradition. The portrait follows the established Utagawa-school ōkubi-e (large-head portrait) and bust-portrait conventions: the actor's face occupies the central composition; the costume is rendered in detailed pattern; and an inscribed cartouche identifies the actor and (in the original publishing context) the role and theater. Kuniaki II's signature on this sheet uses the Utagawa cartouche inherited from his teacher Kunisada, and the print belongs to a sequence of single-actor portraits of Kumesaburō III he issued through the early-to-mid 1860s as one of the popular subjects of the Edo print market.