The Actors Ichimura Uzaemon IX as Shume no Hangan Morihisa (right), and Sanogawa Ichimatsu II as Chujo (left), in the Play Edo no Hana Wakayagi Soga, Performed at the Ichimura Theater in the Second Month, 1769

This Edo ukiyo-e print by Ippitsusai Buncho is a paired yakusha-e portrait of Ichimura Uzaemon IX as Shume no Hangan Morihisa (right) and Sanogawa Ichimatsu II as Chūjō (left) in Edo no Hana Wakayagi Soga, performed at the Ichimura Theater in the second month of 1769. The Art Institute of Chicago preserves the impression and supplies the full cast and theatrical attribution. Edo no Hana Wakayagi Soga belongs to the long tradition of Soga plays — dramatizations of the medieval Soga brothers' revenge tale — that anchored the kabuki calendar throughout the eighteenth century, and Buncho's print fixes a specific meeting of two leading performers within that recurring program. Uzaemon IX, the head of the Ichimura theatrical line, occupies the right of the sheet as Morihisa; Ichimatsu II carries the role of Chūjō on the left. The composition is organized around the angles at which the two figures stand toward each other, the contrast of their patterned costumes, and the more finely drawn faces by which the individual actors remain recognizable. Buncho's pair sheets of this kind helped consolidate the late-1760s yakusha-e format in which two performers and their specific roles were documented together on a single durable image, and the present print stands as a representative example of that practice within the broader Edo ukiyo-e print culture of the period.