Hayatake Torakichi from Osaka: Performance in Ryōgoku

A woodblock print of 1857 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession 2009.434.5), this design depicts the celebrated Osaka acrobat and performer Hayatake Torakichi in a performance staged at Ryōgoku, the entertainment district along the Sumida River in Edo. Ryōgoku was one of the great popular-amusement zones of the late-Edo capital, with sideshows, sumo matches, food stalls, and seasonal firework displays clustered along the bridge approaches; touring entertainers from Osaka and other cities regularly performed there for Edo audiences. Hayatake Torakichi was a star of the kyokugei (acrobatics and feats) tradition who specialized in dramatic balancing tricks and spectacular costume routines. Kunisada II's print takes him in mid-act, the figure rendered with the muscular dynamism characteristic of yakusha-e adapted to a non-kabuki performer. The 1857 date places this print just as Edo was entering the political turbulence of the Bakumatsu years, when the popular-entertainment culture that Kunisada II's studio served continued briefly at full intensity before the upheavals of the Restoration.