The Actors Nakamura Nakazo I as Matsukaze (right), and Ichikawa Komazo I as Yukihira (left), in the Play Kuni no Hana Ono no Itsumoji, Performed at the Nakamura Theater in the Eleventh Month, 1771

This hosoban (narrow-format) color woodblock print at the Art Institute of Chicago depicts two of Edo's leading kabuki actors in a Nakamura Theater production from the eleventh month of 1771. Nakamura Nakazo I appears on the right as Matsukaze, the famous female ghost of pine-shore lore, while Ichikawa Komazo I plays Yukihira on the left. The play, Kuni no Hana Ono no Itsumoji, draws on the classical Noh play Matsukaze and its tale of two sisters who fell in love with the exiled poet Ariwara no Yukihira at Suma Bay. The hosoban format, narrow vertical strips often issued in pairs or sets, was the Katsukawa school's signature contribution to yakusha-e (actor prints), and Shuncho here works squarely within the house style established by his master Katsukawa Shunsho. The work is significant as evidence of Shuncho's early career within the Katsukawa workshop before he turned decisively toward the Edo bijin-ga style that would define his independent practice from the mid-1780s onward.