布袋市右衛門図大津絵|Ōtsu-e of Kabuki Actor Playing Hotei Ichiemon

The work is dated 1716 and is attributed to an anonymous maker of Ōtsu-e, a genre of popular pictures produced near Ōtsu on the Tōkaidō road. It entered the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of its holdings of Japanese paintings, where it remains housed in New York.

The 1716 hanging scroll depicting a kabuki actor in the role of Hotei Ichiemon exemplifies the genre of Ōtsu-e portraiture, a popular form of inexpensive, narrative-driven folk pictures produced in Edo-period Japan. Although the artist remains unidentified, the work's presence in the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection underscores scholarly interest in anonymous practitioners of this tradition and their contribution to the visual documentation of contemporary performance culture. Researchers have highlighted the piece as a reference for understanding how Edo artists blended theatrical iconography with folk-painting techniques, situating it within broader discussions of anonymity and genre specialization in early modern Japanese painting.

This Ōtsu-e print depicts a kabuki actor portraying Hotei Ichiemon, a well-known figure from the Japanese stage. Rendered as a hand-colored woodblock print on paper, it is presented as a hanging scroll. The subject, a man in a loose robe, displays a wide grin while holding a fan and a bag, characteristic attributes of the deity Hotei.

His face is distinctively painted white, accented with prominent red and black lines defining his eyebrows and cheeks.