The Actor Matsumoto Koshiro IV as Kakogawa Honzo in the Play Kanadehon Chushingura, Performed at the Kawarazaki Theater in the Fifth Month, 1795

Katsukawa Shunei portrays the major tachiyaku Matsumoto Koshiro IV in the role of Kakogawa Honzo, the upright retainer of the Momonoi household who tries unsuccessfully to forestall the catastrophe of Kanadehon Chushingura, in a fifth-month 1795 production at the Kawarazaki Theater. Kakogawa Honzo is one of the great morally weighted roles of the Chushingura cycle: a samurai who restrains Enya Hangan's first impulsive blow and then suffers terrible consequences for his interference, ultimately presenting himself to the loyal retainers in penitence. Matsumoto Koshiro IV, known affectionately to Edo audiences as Hanashichi, was particularly admired in such weighty male-lead roles. Shunei renders him in formal kamishimo dress with the broad-shouldered presence and set features that became the actor's signature, drawing on the Katsukawa school's commitment to individualized facial likeness in Edo yakusha-e. The print serves as both publicity for the 1795 Kawarazaki run and as a permanent record of one of the great kabuki actor prints of the Chushingura cycle. As Katsukawa Shunsho's senior pupil, Shunei was the natural artist for such a project, and by 1795 he was producing some of the most powerful actor portraits in the city. This impression is held by the Art Institute of Chicago, where it sits alongside Shunei's broader run of Chushingura-related prints.