Unidentified mid-19th Century Japanese Preparatory drawing or Shita-e/Gako

Unidentified mid-19th Century Japanese Preparatory drawing or Shita-e/Gako

Anonymous Utagawa school

32 x 23m

Drawn in Chinese Ink on thin paper with red seal to bottom of page

Clean imaging but creasing to the page and some smudges and marks

In this preparatory drawing two actors are shown as Samurai – one holding a sword and bow, and the other a fan. The image and artist are unidentified, but the style is consistent with being by one of  the popular Kabuki artists of the mid 19th Century (such as Kunisada).