Actor Wearing Chinese Costume, Taishô period, circa 1920-1922
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Format:
- Oban
- Publisher:
- Watanabe Shozaburo
- Source:
- Harvard Art Museums
$2,000–$15,000. Kabuki actor portraits are highly collectible. Good actor or bijin-ga prints: $5,000–$10,000. Key value factors: Yamamura's Art Deco-influenced designs are particularly sought after. Kabuki actor prints and bold modern compositions command the highest prices.
Dating to the early 1920s, this [oban](/glossary/oban) woodblock print depicts an unidentified kabuki actor dressed in elaborate Chinese-style theatrical costume. Such costumes appear in plays drawn from Chinese historical and literary sources, a longstanding strand of the kabuki repertoire. The ornate robes, with their embroidered patterns and wide sleeves, gave Toyonari an opportunity to explore decorative complexity that his more austere Japanese-costume prints deliberately avoided. The print captures the visual spectacle that Chinese-themed kabuki productions offered audiences, with bold color contrasts between the costume's richly patterned fabric and the simplified treatment of the face. Toyonari's flat color areas and clean key-block lines translate the three-dimensional opulence of stage costume into a compelling graphic arrangement.
1919
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
Woodblock print
1920
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper with mica
1920
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper with nikawa and embossing
歌舞伎
Woodblock print
1955
Woodblock print
1928
Color lithograph
1930
Color lithograph
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Actor Wearing Chinese Costume, Taishô period, circa 1920-1922 was created by Yamamura Toyonari (山村豊成).
Actor Wearing Chinese Costume, Taishô period, circa 1920-1922 was published by Watanabe Shozaburo.
Actor Wearing Chinese Costume, Taishô period, circa 1920-1922 depicts kabuki.