Actor Morita Kan’ya XIII as Jean Valjean, from an untitled series known as “Flowers of the Theater”

Opening in 1908, Tokyo’s Yūraku-za was Japan’s first Western-style theater. In 1920, it staged a production of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables starring Morita Kan’ya, an actor whose repertoire spanned kabuki to Shakespeare. Yamamura Toyonari’s dramatic image of Kan’ya as Jean Valjean, poised to steal the bishop’s silver candlesticks, is based on promotional photographs. These “bromides” had largely superseded woodblock prints as souvenirs of the theater. As an emerging artist, Toyonari augmented his income by illustrating books and magazines. His first actor prints, published by Watanabe Shōzaburō in 1916, attracted a circle of ardent supporters. With their patronage, Toyonari was able to establish a printmaking practice independent of Watanabe. This print belongs to a series of 12 actor portraits, his debut project as an autonomous printmaker.