Act Eight: The Bridal Journey (Michiyuki) from the play Chushingura (Treasury of the Forty-seven Loyal Retainers)

Act Eight of Kanadehon Chūshingura — the michiyuki or bridal journey in which Konami and her mother Tonase travel cross-country to meet Konami's betrothed Rikiya — is one of the most famous lyrical sequences in the kabuki repertoire, a moment of poetic interlude before the play's tragic climax. This koban print in the Art Institute of Chicago, dated to the late 1780s, shows Shun'ei distilling the michiyuki into a small-format composition designed for the kind of viewer who wanted a portable summary of the cycle's high points. The koban scale lent itself to series-based publishing, and Chūshingura series — one print per act, or one print per famous tableau — were a recurrent commercial format throughout the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Shun'ei's contribution to this tradition keeps the figures intimate within the small frame, with attention to the landscape elements that anchor the journey scene. The print is a useful reminder that the Katsukawa school's commitment to actor portraiture did not exclude work in narrative and lyrical modes when the publisher's program called for it.