Ryukou Otsu-e Kidai-no-maremono

The person sitting in the center is Matabei，an otsu-e artist，but actually it is a self-portrait of Kuniyoshi，the artist of this picture. A flying piece of paper covers his face. He is painting otsu-e characters one by one. Looing at them closely，w e know they are portraits of actors. Kuniyoshi's wit exploited the prohibition of publishing actors' portraits in the early 19th century to produce such unique pictures as these.