Chūban identifies a medium-sized ukiyo-e print format.
The term means “middle format” and is commonly used by museums and print catalogues for sheets smaller than the standard ōban format. Chūban prints were especially common in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when publishers used a range of standardized sheet sizes for actor portraits, beauties, and other subjects.
Japanese print dimensions were not perfectly uniform, because paper was trimmed, editions varied, and regional practice changed over time. As a result, chūban is a useful format category rather than a guarantee that every sheet has exactly identical measurements.
Hosoban is a narrower vertical format often used for actor prints, while kakemono-e refers to a pillar-like hanging format. Ōban is generally the larger standard format, so these terms describe different proportions or sizes rather than different artistic subjects.