Artist: Utagawa Kunisada [歌川 国貞], a.k.a. Utagawa Toyokuni III [三代 歌川 豊国] (Japanese, 1786 – 1865)

Signed: Kōchō Kunisada ga (香蝶國貞画)

Publisher: No seal

Date: 1839 – no date seal, no censor seal (date per R. Schaap).

Media: Aiban yoko-e uchiwa-e (団扇絵), color woodblock print, 228 x 298 mm

Actor: Onoe Kikugorō III [尾上菊五郎] (Japanese, 1784 – 1849); other names: Ōkawa Hashizō I, Onoe Baikō III, Onoe Matsusuke II, Onoe Eizaburō I. The actor’s name is not written.

Half-length, three-quarter portrait of kabuki actor Onoe Kikugorō III (尾上菊五郎) with head turned slightly to the right, eyes wide. He wears a pale blue outer robe with a repeating white grid (kōshi) pattern and dark blue butterflies composed of flowers and gibbon monkeys. A white towel with blue stripes is tucked over the shoulder.

He holds a hand drum (tsuzumi) decorated with gilt floral motifs on black and laced with red cords. The background is a framed screen showing a landscape of cherry blossoms on hills set against a red-to-blue gradient sky.

It is possible that all identifying information, including the publisher, censor, date, role, and other details, was written on the reverse side of the print.

Our print is the fourth of the untitled series of fan prints with half-length kabuki actors and a background with a framed painting.

Ichikawa Ebizō V	Nakamura Utaemon IV	Arashi Kichisaburo III

Reference: [LIB-1212.2017] Robert Schaap. Kunisada: Imaging, drama and beauty. — Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 2016; p. 97, pl. 80.

[Thanks Horst Graebner of Kunisada Project].