The Actor Ichikawa Yaozo II as Goi no Sho Munesada with a Deer, in the Play Kuni no Hana Ono no Itsumoji (Flower of Japan: Ono no Komachi's Five Characters), Performed at the Nakamura Theater from the First Day of the Eleventh Month, 1771

Ippitsusai Buncho's hosoban print shows the Edo kabuki actor Ichikawa Yaozo II as Goi no Sho Munesada accompanied by a deer, in the play Kuni no Hana Ono no Itsumoji, whose title may be rendered as Flower of Japan: Ono no Komachi's Five Characters. The production opened at the Nakamura Theater on the first day of the eleventh month of 1771, in the kaomise season. The work is in the Art Institute of Chicago. Munesada is the courtier-lover associated with the classical poet Ono no Komachi, and the appearance of a deer beside him alludes to the autumnal, melancholic landscape settings often given to scenes drawn from her cycle of legends. Ichikawa Yaozo II was an important Edo male-role specialist of the period, and Buncho's design uses the tall, narrow hosoban format to set figure and animal against a minimal ground, allowing costume and pose to dominate. Buncho was one of the central Edo ukiyo-e artists of the late 1760s and early 1770s, with a yakusha-e output focused on the leading kabuki performers of the Nakamura, Ichimura, and Morita theaters. His prints typically carry inscribed information identifying actor, role, play, theater, and date, and the Art Institute of Chicago's impression preserves all of that contextual detail. The image gives modern viewers an unusually precise record of how classical literary themes were absorbed into Edo kabuki and circulated through commercial prints.