Description
Nakamura Tomijūrō’s tall-woman role appears in a paired actor scene before a great mountain backdrop in this image by Katsukawa Shunshō. The figure on the right wears a broad flat straw hat, while the companion occupies the other part of the two-sheet arrangement. The mountain’s immense shape makes the actors’ carefully constructed appearances feel small within a dramatically enlarged setting.
Made around 1778, the work is a diptych of ink-and-color woodblock prints. Its two-sheet format belongs to the design’s presentation and should not be overlooked when the image is encountered as a single view. Shunshō preserves both the named performer and the female persona through which he appears. The contrast between the body’s height and the hat’s breadth gives the role a memorable physical identity without requiring an invented dramatic episode.
Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Katsukawa Shunshō collection.
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