Hayatake Torakichi from Osaka

This 1857 ōban-format woodblock print, titled "Hayatake Torakichi from Osaka" and held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession number 2009.434.3), depicts the celebrated Osaka acrobat Hayatake Torakichi during his famous Edo performances of that year. Hayatake Torakichi was one of the most successful entertainers of late-Edo Japan, a master of kyokugei (acrobatic spinning-top and balancing arts) whose Edo tour in the summer of 1857 became a sensation and produced a flurry of single-sheet portraits and series by Edo print designers. Utagawa Yoshiharu, then in his late twenties and working in the heart of the Utagawa school under his master Kuniyoshi's example, produced a sequence of prints documenting Torakichi's signature feats, of which this sheet is one. The print measures 36.2 by 25.4 centimetres in the standard vertical ōban format used for Edo single-sheet portraits, and the museum identifies it as part of a small group of related Torakichi prints by Yoshiharu acquired together in 2009. The composition's celebration of a popular performer connects it to the broader Edo [yakusha-e](/glossary/yakusha-e) tradition while also documenting the celebrity culture of touring artists that flourished in the city's late-Edo years. The print is held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Department of Asian Art and is in the public domain.