The record behind the sheet in your tube: the file we worked from, what we measured, what we chose and why, what we are allowed to sell, and the framing dimensions for this sheet.
Framing this sheet
- 30 × 40 cm sheet
- A 30 × 40 cm frame, no mat. Nearest standard 12 × 16 in. Margins 3.10 cm each side, 3.01 cm top, 3.47 cm bottom.
- 50 × 70 cm sheet
- A 50 × 70 cm frame. Nearest standard 20 × 28 in. Margins 5.96 cm each side, 7.61 cm top, 8.76 cm bottom.
- If you mat it
- Go one frame size up and cut the window three millimetres inside the printed image on every side: 23.20 × 32.92 cm for the small sheet, 37.48 × 53.03 cm for the large one. Off-white or warm white board, acid-free. Do not trim the sheet.
The sheet you have
- Work
- Tōshūsai Sharaku (Japanese, active 1794–95), The Kabuki Actor Ichikawa Omezō I as the Footman Ippei, 1794, fifth month, from an untitled series of actor bust portraits
- Object
- Colour woodblock print with ink and mica ground, ōban, vertical, 34 × 23.8 cm. Published by Tsutaya Jūzaburō. Signed Tōshūsai Sharaku ga
- Held by
- Kunstmuseum Basel, Kupferstichkabinett, bequest of Dr. Carl Mettler, Basel 1942
- Inventory
- 1942.511
- Provenance
- Albert Willner, Berlin; Rudolph Lepke, Berlin, auction 2016, 15–17 October 1929, lot 903; Dr. Carl Mettler, Basel, probably bought at that sale; bequest to the Kunstmuseum Basel, 1942
- File
- The museum’s own original file, taken directly from the institution
- Crop
- At the outermost edge of the sheet. Nothing of the paper is cut.
The picture Sharaku made
Ichikawa Omezō I plays the footman Ippei: head thrust forward, eyes cut to one side, mouth pulled down, one hand on a sword half drawn. The figure is set against a dark ground sprinkled with mica, which catches the light as the sheet moves. Sharaku was active for less than a year, in 1794 and 1795; his series of actor bust portraits is counted among the high points of the portrait in the woodblock print.
What we measured
The museum’s file is 5015 × 6985 px. The sheet occupies 4785 × 6739 px of it (columns 108 to 4893, rows 121 to 6860), a ratio of 1.4084 against 1.4286 for the catalogued 23.8 × 34 cm — 1.4 % apart. The sheet sits about a millimetre out of true in the photograph; we crop at the outermost edge, so a hairline of the mount remains in two corners rather than any paper being cut.
We take the catalogued width as the anchor: 23.8 cm over 4785 px is 201.1 px/cm, or 511 dpi at original size. The printed height comes out at 33.5 cm against the catalogued 34. We do not stretch the file to close the gap.
Why these two sizes
The 30 × 40 cm sheet prints the portrait at its original size, 1:1, 23.80 × 33.52 cm, at 511 dpi. The 50 × 70 cm sheet enlarges it to 1.6×, 38.08 × 53.63 cm, at 319 dpi. The file would carry 1.68×; we stop at 1.6× to keep a margin of six centimetres at the sides. Both sheets place the picture at the optical centre.
Colour, measured from the file at 400 × 300 px: mean RGB 132 / 115 / 100; four fifths of the pixels read as warm, none as blue.
What we are allowed to sell
The print dates from 1794 and is in the public domain everywhere we sell.
At the reproduction level, the Kunstmuseum Basel marks the image «Bilddaten gemeinfrei – Kunstmuseum Basel» and allows it to be shared, used for any purpose including commercial use, and adapted, without asking. It asks that the public-domain notice be kept, which we do here: Bilddaten gemeinfrei – Kunstmuseum Basel. Checked 19 September 2026.
Printed by Gelato on 200 gsm fine art giclée paper with pigment inks. A reproduction, not an original woodblock print, and not sold as one.