This is a woodblock print by Kunisada depicting a Scene from a Kabuki play (c. 1850). I scanned it from the excellent book The Nature of Photographs by Stephen Shore. Here’s Shore’s comments about the illustration:

“Japanese woodblock prints use the frame in a way that is more reminiscent of photographs than of Western painting. It has been suggested that it was a result of the Eastern scroll tradition ― seeing the infinitly variable croppings that occur when viewing a scroll as it rolled from hand to hand. Perhaps by examining what it gives these prints their sense of photographic framing we canclarify what photographic framing is.

Notice how, in the upper right of the picture, the frame gives emphasis to the angel’s hand staying the sword. The angel is described with the greatest economy: the artist has given the least information needed for us to read this being as an angel. There is something slyly wonderful about our ability to make an interpretation based on this minimal description.

Now, notice the leg jutting into the image from the lower right. It is really amazing that the artist chose to add this. It doesn’t relate to any of the action in the picture. It is entirely extraneous. It typifies the sort of seemingly arbitrary cropping that occurs when the frame of a photograph slices through the world. While it doesn’t relate to the unfolding drama of the picture, it does imply that this drama is a part of a larger world.”

From The Nature of Photographs, 2nd edition, New York: Phaidon, 2007, p. 64-64 (Amazon).

About Kunisada:

“Utagawa Kunisada (1786 - 1865) (also known as Utagawa Toyokuni III) was the most popular, prolific and financially successful designer of ukiyo-e woodblock prints in 19th-century Japan. In his own time, his reputation far exceeded that of his contemporaries, Hokusai, Hiroshige and Kuniyoshi.” (Wikipedia)