Artist: Utagawa Kunisada II 二代歌川国貞, signing Baidō Kunisada 梅堂國貞筆 (1823–1880) Series: "A Contest of Famous Flowers", title cartouche upper right Subject: Ukiyo Matahei 浮世又平, played by Bandō Hikosaburō 坂東彦三郎 Date: Bakumatsu to early Meiji, c. 1860s–1870s Format: Ōban tate-e, nishiki-e approx. 36 * 24cm ---------------------------------------------------------- Condition: Excellent, fresh colours. Minor trimming, largely confined to the area outside the image. Please refer to the images for full condition details. --------------------------------------------------------- About the print: A half-length actor portrait set against a flat, saturated crimson ground, with an inset landscape panel (koma-e) framed at the top of the sheet. The role is Ukiyo Matahei, the semi-legendary Ōtsu-e painter of the Genroku era — the figure Chikamatsu dramatised as the stammering artist Dōmo no Matahei in Keisei Hangonkō, and one of the enduring folk-heroes of the Japanese print world. Kunisada identifies him unmistakably by dressing him in his own creations: the robe carries the Oni no Nenbutsu (the demon in priest's robes with gong and mallet), the single most famous of all Ōtsu-e motifs, worked in green against scarlet flames. More painted figures crowd behind his shoulder, together with the white paper streamers of a votive gohei. The conceit — an artist wearing his own pictures — is the kind of visual pun the Utagawa school did particularly well, and it gives this sheet more interest than a standard actor bust. The koma-e above shows a cherry-blossom scene with wooden signboards and a thatched teahouse, in the manner of an Edo meisho vignette. Read alongside the series title Meika Kurabe, it suggests the set paired kabuki roles with celebrated flower-viewing places — a common mitate structure in the period. Printing quality is high: fine hairline carving in the wig and sideburns, careful registration across the flame pattern, and the deep unbroken red ground that Utagawa-school publishers used to make a single sheet carry across a shop window.