Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
The Actor Ōtani Tokuji I as the Retainer Sodesuke
Tōshūsai Sharaku Japanese
Not on view
This is one of eleven extraordinary portraits on mica background commemorating actors in Flowering Irises: A Soga Vendetta of the Bunroku Era (Hana ayame: Bunroku Soga), performed in the fifth month (when irises bloom) of 1794, at the Miyako Theater in Edo. The vendetta play is based on a twelfth-century tale about the Ishii brothers, who plan for decades to avenge the death of their murdered father. The firmly clenched fist, tight-lipped mouth, and hopeful gaze of the actor Ōtani Tokuji I (1756–1807) as Sodesuke, a manservant in the retinue of the brothers, express the character’s loyalty and determination. By spring of the next year, for reasons not clear, Sharaku retired from ukiyo-e design, after only a little more than ten months of activity.
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