Ichikawa Yaozo II as an Itinerant Peddler

Held by the Cleveland Museum of Art and dated to the mid- or late 1770s, this Katsukawa Shunkō print depicts Ichikawa Yaozō II as an itinerant peddler. The peddler character was a recurring kabuki type — sometimes a comic figure providing relief, sometimes a disguised hero traveling incognito, sometimes a sinister stranger arriving from the road. The role allowed actors to display range, transitioning between humble peddler costuming and the dramatic revelations that often followed when the character's true identity became clear. Ichikawa Yaozō II (1735–1777) was a major Edo actor with strong associations to the Ichikawa-Danjūrō lineage, and Shunkō produced multiple portraits of him in different roles during the brief overlap between Yaozō II's career and his own emergence as an independent print designer. The mid- to late-1770s date places this work in Shunkō's early-to-middle period, just as his individual style was crystallizing within the Katsukawa school's house manner. The Cleveland Museum of Art's collection of Katsukawa-school prints provides invaluable comparative material for tracing the careers of both designer and actor across multiple commissions.