Kitaoka Nizaemon XI as the Arita potter Sakaida Kakiemon

Yakusha-e of Kitaoka Nizaemon XI in the role of Sakaida Kakiemon, the seventeenth-century Arita potter credited with developing the iro-e overglaze enamel technique that established the Kakiemon style of Hizen porcelain decoration. The role is a jidaimono (period piece) treatment of an artisan-historical figure rather than a classical kabuki tachiyaku archetype. Yamamura's portrait isolates Nizaemon's face in the okubi-e tradition, attending to the actor's makeup and the wig style appropriate to a seventeenth-century craftsman, with the hands or potter's tools potentially indicated at lower frame. The print belongs to a vein of shin-hanga theatrical portraiture that drew renewed attention to Edo and earlier subjects through modern actor performance. It was produced through the publisher-coordinated workshop collaboration central to shin-hanga: brush drawing transferred to keyblock by a horishi, color separations cut to additional cherrywood blocks, and registered impressions taken on hōsho washi by a surishi using the baren and nishiki-e polychrome printing.