Actor Umeya Kakitsu

A color ōban woodblock print of 1862 in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, this Actor Umeya Kakitsu pictures Ichimura Kakitsu IV (later Ichimura Uzaemon XIII, 1845–1903), an actor of the senior Ichimura line who would become one of the great Meiji-era kabuki stars. The Umeya stage name (梅家) was an early name of Kakitsu IV's career before his elevation to the senior Ichimura Uzaemon name in 1868 — the year of the Meiji Restoration — and prints of him as Kakitsu document the brief Bakumatsu phase of his long stage career. Kuniaki II's 1862 portrait was issued during Kakitsu's first prominent roles at the Ichimura-za, and the composition follows the standard Utagawa actor-print formula: the figure in costume; the face rendered in the personalized idealization that distinguishes Utagawa portraits from earlier Kabuki actor prints; and the cartouche conventions of the late-Bakumatsu print trade. The print belongs to a body of actor portraits issued for the 1862 Edo kabuki season and is one of several Kuniaki II portraits of Kakitsu IV preserved at MFA Boston.