The Actor Iwai Hanshiro IV in Street Attire (by Shun'ei) Conversing with Two Women (by Shuncho)

This collaborative [aiban](/glossary/aiban)-format print in the Art Institute of Chicago, dated to about 1788, joins Shun'ei's hand with that of Katsukawa Shunchō, another pupil of Shunshō who later moved increasingly into [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) (prints of beauties). Shun'ei contributed the figure of the actor Iwai Hanshirō IV, shown in informal street attire — a remarkable subject in itself, since most actor prints depicted performers in stage costume — while Shunchō provided the two female figures with whom Hanshirō is in conversation. The composition exemplifies a particular subgenre that emerged in the late 1780s, in which actors were depicted off-stage as celebrities of urban Edo life, and it also reflects the collaborative working habits of the Katsukawa studio. The aiban format, larger than [hosoban](/glossary/hosoban), allowed the three figures to be arranged with breathing room, and the print preserves the texture of late-Tenmei-era Edo fashion: Hanshirō's understated kimono is rendered with restraint, while the women's hair arrangements and patterned garments showcase Shunchō's developing bijin idiom. The print remains a valuable document of both artists' early careers and the social world in which the actor portrait flourished.