Album of Actor Portraits
Shōrakusai (Japanese)
c. 1790–1810
Medium
accordion-style album; ink and color on silk mounted on paper and ink on paper
Dimensions
28.1 × 42 cm
Classification
Bound Volume
Department
Japanese Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Kelvin Smith Fund
Accession Number
1988.105
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
male
About this artwork
The paintings in this album show Kabuki actors costumed for their roles in a variety of plays. The characters are identified in the paper cartouches affixed to the paintings. While each painting is on silk that has been pasted into the album, the poems on some of the facing pages have been written in ink directly onto the page.