Actor Nakamura Noshio II as Tonase in “Model for Kana Calligraphy: Treasury of the 47 Loyal Retainers” (“Kanadehon chûshingura”)

Katsukawa Shunei depicts the onnagata Nakamura Noshio II as Tonase, the formidable matriarch of the Kakogawa household in Kanadehon Chushingura, the Model for Kana Calligraphy: Treasury of the 47 Loyal Retainers. Tonase is one of the great female roles of the Chushingura cycle, a samurai mother whose disciplined endurance and ultimate willingness to sacrifice her daughter make her a paragon of the warrior-class code of giri. Nakamura Noshio II was an onnagata noted for the gravity and command he could bring to such mature roles, and Shunei renders him in heavy formal kimono, the face given the individualized likeness for which the Katsukawa school's Edo yakusha-e was famed. The print belongs to the artist's broader engagement with the Chushingura material, including the act-based scene prints he produced in coordinated sets and the named-actor portraits like this one that documented specific cast members. As Katsukawa Shunsho's senior pupil, Shunei extended the school's signature emphasis on the specific actor in the specific role into one of the most heavily repeated story cycles of Edo kabuki. Prints of this kind functioned both as advertising for a current production and as a memorialization of an interpretation that fans would want to keep. The Art Institute of Chicago preserves this impression among its rich holdings of Katsukawa-school kabuki actor prints from the late eighteenth century.