Flowers of Edo, Famous Views: Number Ten, Shitaya

This three section sheet is a standard ukiyo-e design known as the harimaze, meaning a single print comprised of two or more distinct images. Kunisada and several collaborators were partial to this design type and used landscapes and actor portraits juxtaposed in these multi-part compositions. The actor depicted in the lower two vignettes of this work has been identified as Nakamura Utaemon IV (1798-1852), the fourth generation of a prominent family of kabuki actors. He was known as an extremely versatile player who was also a talented dancer and who could brilliantly perform the entire spectrum of male and female (onnagata) roles.