The Actor Matusmto Koshiro IV as Ise no Saburo Disguised as Mizoro no Sabu in the Play Mure Takamatsu Yuki no Shirahata, Performed at the Ichimura Theater in the Eleventh Month, 1780

Held by the Art Institute of Chicago and dated to about 1780, this Katsukawa Shunjō hosoban print depicts the actor Matsumoto Kōshirō IV as Ise no Saburō, in disguise as Mizoro no Sabu, in the play Mure Takamatsu Yuki no Shirahata, performed at the Ichimura Theater in the eleventh month of 1780. Matsumoto Kōshirō IV (1737–1802) was one of the leading Edo actors of the Tenmei era, a tachiyaku (male-role specialist) celebrated for both authoritative warrior roles and the kind of disguise-and-revelation scenes — in which a noble character moves through the play under a low-status alias — that were a structural feature of much eighteenth-century kabuki. The eleventh-month staging was the kaomise (face-showing) production, the annual ceremonial opening of the new theatrical year at the Edo licensed theaters, in which each company introduced its troupe for the coming season. Kaomise productions were elaborate, multi-strand spectacles drawing on the standard history-play repertoire — here a snowbound Takamatsu narrative — and they generated a large volume of commemorative actor prints. Shunjō's design follows the standard Katsukawa-school hosoban approach: a single full-figure actor in role-specific costume, identified by likeness and mon (family crest), with minimal background and the play title, role, theater, and month of performance recorded in cartouche. The Clarence Buckingham Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago acquired the impression as part of the deep Buckingham holdings of Katsukawa-school yakusha-e, which preserve a substantial record of early Tenmei Edo kabuki production.