The Actor Osagawa Tsuneyo II as Oiso no Tora in the Play Gohiiki no Hana Aikyo Soga, Performed at the Kawarazaki Theater in the First Month, 1794

Katsukawa Shunei's print of Osagawa Tsuneyo II as the courtesan Oiso no Tora documents a New Year 1794 production at the Kawarazaki Theater of Gohiiki no Hana Aikyo Soga, a variation on the perennial Soga vendetta cycle. Oiso no Tora, the loyal lover of the elder Soga brother Juro, was one of the central female roles of the Edo kabuki repertory, returning seasonally each spring in dozens of revisions, and Osagawa Tsuneyo II was among the onnagata regularly entrusted with the part. Shunei depicts the actor in the elaborate kimono of a high-ranking courtesan, the obi knotted in front to denote her professional status, the face given the specific likeness for which Katsukawa school kabuki actor prints had become indispensable to Edo theatergoers. As the senior pupil of Katsukawa Shunsho, Shunei spent the late 1780s and 1790s producing yakusha-e in volume sufficient to track the entire stage season at multiple theaters. By 1794, the year of this design, he was at the height of his powers and just months away from the competitive pressure of Toshusai Sharaku's brief but seismic appearance in Edo print publishing. This impression is held by the Art Institute of Chicago among its substantial collection of late-eighteenth-century kabuki actor prints, where it allows direct comparison of competing treatments of the Oiso no Tora role across artists and seasons.