The Actor Ōtani Hiroji II as Kazusa no Shichirō Kagekiyo
ca. 1750
The Torii school originated the format of single-sheet actor prints, whose style could be subtly decorative or boldly expressive. The latter approach, for which the school is most renowned, captured the rough manner of acting made famous by the flamboyant Edo superstar Ichikawa Danjuro. The majority of Kiyomitsu's single-sheet prints were benizuri-e, an early form of color print in which two or three separate blocks of color were printed in addition to the ink-outline block. Developed in the 1740s, this mode of printing was supplanted by the invention of full-color printing in 1765.
Woodblock print; ink and color on paper
Sheet size: 12 x 5 5/8 in. (30.5 x 14.3 cm)
Gift of Mary and Allan Kollar
2011.40.7
Provenance: [Sotheby’s, London, Japanese Works of Art, Prints & Paintings, Nov. 9, 2006, sale no. L06861, lot no. 718, reproduced p. 13]; purchased at auction by Allan Kollar, Seattle, Washington, 2006; to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 2011