Memorial Portrait of the Actor Sawamura Tanosuke II

This 1817 oban-format color woodblock print by Utagawa Kunisada is a shini-e, a memorial portrait, of the actor Sawamura Tanosuke II, who had recently died in that year. Memorial portraits, or shini-e, were a distinct subgenre of yakusha-e produced in the days or weeks following an actor's death, intended for fans and the public to mourn and commemorate the loss. They typically depict the actor in his most celebrated role, accompanied by his posthumous Buddhist name, death poem (jisei), and inscriptions giving the date of death. Kunisada designed many shini-e across his career, and as the Edo theater world's chief portraitist he was the natural choice for posthumous tributes. Sawamura Tanosuke II was a noted onnagata of the late Bunka era. The 1817 print falls in Kunisada's early career, before the explosive expansion of his output in the 1820s, and the work is signed in his earlier style as Kunisada rather than Toyokuni III. Stylistically, shini-e tend to combine careful actor likeness with somber framing (often a cloud-shaped cartouche behind the figure), restrained color, and inscriptions praising the deceased. The Art Institute of Chicago's example documents both Kunisada's command of the memorial portrait genre at an early stage and the kabuki world's response to the loss of one of its admired performers.