The Actor Ichikawa Danjuro V as Hei Shinno Masakado in the Play Hana no O-Edo Masakado Matsuri, Performed at the Ichimura Theater in the Eleventh Month, 1789

Ichikawa Danjūrō V was the towering star of late-eighteenth-century Edo kabuki, the head of a theatrical dynasty whose bombastic aragoto style of acting defined the heroic male roles of the day. This hosoban print in the Art Institute of Chicago, dated to about 1789, shows him as Taira no Masakado (Hei Shinnō Masakado), the tenth-century rebel chieftain whose attempt to declare an independent eastern kingdom became a recurring kabuki subject. The production, Hana no O-Edo Masakado Matsuri at the Ichimura Theater in the eleventh month of 1789, was the kind of seasonal show that Edo audiences turned out for in force, and Shun'ei's print would have circulated as both promotional image and souvenir. The artist captures Danjūrō V with the characteristic Katsukawa attention to the actor's recognizable features — broad cheeks, intense gaze — and renders the costume with the bold patterning suited to a Masakado role. The print is valuable both as evidence of Shun'ei's mature handling of star portraits and as documentation of one of the period's signature kabuki productions.