The Actor Sanogawa Ichimatsu I as Hisamatsu (c. 1748): Artwork and History

The Actor Sanogawa Ichimatsu I as Hisamatsu (c. 1748) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Ishikawa Toyonobu Japanese, 1711–1785.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

Sanogawa Ichimatsu I appeared in this role in the play The Eternal Soga of the Green Gate, which was presented at the Nakamura theater in February 1743. The brown-and-black checked pattern on Ichimatsu’s outercoat (haori) is a design he made fashionable, and it appears in many of his portraits. The contrast of the outer coat with the white kimono patterned with pink plum blossoms and seals is quite striking.

Object facts

• Title: The Actor Sanogawa Ichimatsu I as Hisamatsu
• Date: c. 1748
• Artist attribution: Ishikawa Toyonobu Japanese, 1711–1785
• Place of origin: Japan
• Medium: Hand-colored woodblock print; habahiro hashira-e, urushi-e
• Dimensions: 71 × 26.1 cm (28 × 10 1/4 in.)
• Type: Print
• Department: Arts of Asia
• Reference number: 1931.243

Collection credit

Clarence Buckingham Collection

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.