Man as Woman

This print is of the Japanese actor Segawa Tumisaburo, in female character, by the artist Toshusai Sharaku. Sharaku’s prints have qualities that distinguish them from others of the same genre as they are more intense with differing harmonies of color and portray heightened facial expressions. They were all produced in one year, 1794, and there is no evidence that the artist, a dancer by profession, had even designed a color-print before.

1954, Chiswick Press of London