The story behind an iconic portrait by Toshusai Sharaku, one of Japan’s most mysterious artists

During his extremely brief ten-month career as an ukiyo-e woodblock print designer from 1794 to 1795, Toshusai Sharaku created some of Japan’s most memorable and luxurious artworks. Yet more than 200 years later, little remains known about the artist himself. What is perhaps most shocking about Sharaku’s artistic success is that he had no formal training and nevertheless managed to procure one of the most prestigious publishers in Japan. The fact that his true name and the dates of his birth and death are still debated only adds to Sharaku’s mystique.

This fall during Christie’s Asian Art Week in New York, one of Sharaku’s most iconic and desirable prints will lead the Japanese and Korean Art auction on 19 September. Featuring the illustrious actor Ichikawa Komazo III as Shiga Daishichi in the play Katakiuchi noriyai banashi (A medley of tales of revenge), the work embodies Sharaku’s mastery of yakusha-e, portraits of kabuki actors in the ukiyo-e style. Ukiyo-e flourished in Japan from the 17th to 19th centuries, and kabuki actors were amongst the genre’s most abundant subjects during the 18th century in particular. Both the play and the actor Komazo were well known at the time, as kabuki actors were idolised by the public.

Written by the renowned Edo Kabuki playwright Sakurada Jisuke, Katakiuchi noriyai banashi centres on the revenge taken by two sisters, Miyagino and Shinobu, for their father Matsushita Mikinoshin, who has been murdered by Shiga Daishichi. Sharaku’s striking depiction of Komazo as Daishichi captures the tense moment when the villain is about to kill Matsushita Mikinoshin. In this close-up, nearly monochrome portrait, Daishichi is shown clenching his sword; his eyes laser-focused on his prey.

‘While most artists at the time sought to idealize the actors’ faces, Sharaku was one of the first artists who didn’t follow that style,’ says Takaaki Murakami, Christie’s Head of Japanese Art. ‘He depicted the faces in a slightly distorted manner and uniquely captured the characteristics of each actor, which made his portraits very unusual.’

In Sharaku’s works, a furrowed brow or a simple gesture condenses the drama of a scene into a single, emotionally charged moment. With minimal colour, the prints emphasise the actors’ expressions. It is thought he may have been an actor himself, of Noh classical dance-dramas.

Sharaku’s lack of formal training in art makes his work with the influential publisher Tsutaya Juzaburo — the promoter genius behind many great late 18th-century Japanese artists — all the more remarkable. Sharaku’s portrait of Komazo is one of several printed on a ground of thick, dark silver mica, a precious material reserved for a select few artists. Over his ten-month period working with Tsutaya, Sharaku produced about 140 prints, including 28 actor portraits, each astonishingly bold.

One theory as to why these prints are so rare today is that Tsutaya only released small editions. Their fine printing, colouring and embellishments mirror those of deluxe commissions of surimono — bespoke prints created as gifts or to commemorate a special occasion — and poetry albums.

In the 19th century, ukiyo-e trends shifted to favour landscapes. Artists such as Utagawa Hiroshige and Katsushika Hokusai dominated the market. Sharaku’s legacy as one of the last significant portrait print artists of the 18th century is evinced by his inclusion in the world’s finest museum collections. The offered depiction of Ichikawa Komazo III as Shiga Daishichi features in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the British Museum. While in modern-day Japanese society, kabuki no longer garners the same prestige it once did, the uncanny image of its fierce actors is deeply embedded in the world’s collective memory, thanks to artists like Sharaku.