Actors Ichikawa Danjûrô V as the Spirit of the Monk Seigen and Nakamura Noshio I as the Spirit of the Courtesan Takao in “Courtesan in a Maple-Leaf-Pattern Over-Kimono” (“Keisei Momiji no Uchikake”)

Katsukawa Shunsho records Ichikawa Danjuro V as the spirit of the monk Seigen and Nakamura Noshio I as the spirit of the courtesan Takao in Keisei Momiji no Uchikake, Courtesan in a Maple-Leaf-Pattern Over-Kimono. The Seigen and Sakurahime narrative cycle was one of the great kabuki sources of the late eighteenth century, in which the monk Seigen falls obsessively in love with the princess Sakurahime, dies, and returns as a vengeful spirit, with the role doublings of his ghost paired against famed courtesans like Takao furnishing some of the most coveted onnagata material in the Edo repertoire. Held in the Art Institute of Chicago, the print pairs the two leading actors of their generation: Danjuro V (1741-1806), the patriarch of the Ichikawa line, and Noshio I (1740-1782), one of the most acclaimed onnagata of the period. Shunsho's design uses the isolated paired-figure composition that the Katsukawa school had refined, the unprinted ground throwing emphasis onto costume, posture, and the individuated faces. The maple-leaf-pattern over-kimono on Takao's spirit identifies the moment in the drama, and Shunsho's attention to fabric pattern is among the visual pleasures of the print. As a yakusha-e produced at the height of Shunsho's career, the image stands among the foundational documents of Edo ukiyo-e theatrical printmaking, recording a specific encounter between two performers in a particular dramatic role pairing that no other medium of the period could preserve.