Actor Sakata Hangorô III as Takechi Mitsuhide in “Muromacho Chronicle in Kana Script” (“Kanagaki Muromachi bundan”)

Katsukawa Shunei here depicts Sakata Hangoro III in the role of Takechi Mitsuhide, the kabuki stand-in for the historical traitor Akechi Mitsuhide, in a production of Kanagaki Muromachi Bundan, the Muromacho Chronicle in Kana Script. Sakata Hangoro III was one of the great villain specialists of the late eighteenth-century Edo stage, and Mitsuhide, scheming and ferocious, was among his signature parts. Shunei renders the actor in characteristic kumadori-like makeup and aggressive stance, with thick contour lines bounding the elaborate costume and a face individualized enough that contemporary viewers would have recognized the actor at a glance. As a senior pupil of Katsukawa Shunsho, Shunei was instrumental in continuing the Katsukawa school's signature contribution to Edo yakusha-e: the substitution of true actor likenesses for the generic role-type heads of earlier Torii prints. Sheets like this functioned as both performance souvenir and ongoing publicity for the actor's career, and the play title was incorporated into the design so that the print also functioned as a record of a specific staging. The composition belongs to the cluster of Shunei's work surrounding the Kanagaki Muromachi Bundan production, in which he portrayed several of the leading actors. This impression is preserved in the Art Institute of Chicago, where it sits alongside companion sheets from the same production, offering scholars and collectors an unusually complete view of how the Katsukawa school documented an entire kabuki cast in coordinated print form.