portrait of female kabuki actor

Mitsumura Toshimo, artist

1877–1955

portrait of female kabuki actor, circa 1890

Where object was made: Japan

Material/technique: collodion print; printing-out paper

Dimensions:
Object Height/Width (Height x Width): 26.4 x 21.3 cm
Object Height/Width (Height x Width): 10 3/8 x 8 3/8 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: R. Charles and Mary Margaret Clevenger Art Acquisition Fund

Accession number: 2018.0155

Not on display

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These portraits capture late 19th-century women actors wearing bold, distinctive makeup and posing as men in theatrical roles. Officially banned from performing in kabuki theater in 1629, women returned to the stage after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. These photographs embody not only performance and the role of women actors in theater but also the fluid constructs of gender and sexuality, femininity and masculinity. Mitsumura Toshimo began photography at age 14, and established himself as a commercial photographer in Kobe.