Comment
This prints of Arashi Rikaku II as Kato Saemon in the play Karukaya Doshin tsukushi no iezuto (Priest Karukaya's memento for his ailing wife in Tsukushi: 苅萱桑門筑紫) is a mitate (analogue picture: 見立), i.e., a depiction of the actor in a role for which there is no kabuki record and thus likely a portrait of an imagined performance.
This is an excellent example of Hirosada's close-up portraiture soon after the resumption of Osaka printmaking in the late 1840s.
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