Onoe Matsusuke as Usui Sadamitsu
Katsukawa Shunzan (Japanese, active c. 1782–98)
1781
- Medium
- One of a triptych of color woodblock prints
- Classification
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 31 x 14.5 cm (12 3/16 x 5 11/16 in.)
- Culture
- Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Japanese Art
- Credit line
- Gift from J. H. Wade
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
This print is part of a triptych (a composition of three prints) that shows actors portraying three of the four famed protectors of imperial regent Minamoto Yorimitsu (948?–1021). Collectively, they are known as his Shitennō (四天王), or “Four Heavenly Kings,” after the Buddhist deities who guard the four cardinal directions. The characters are indicated by the large house crests on their robes. The actor Onoe Matsusuke I’s identity is revealed by a fan with the ideograph matsu (松), or “pine,” tucked into his robe, just against his breastplate.
