Actors Ichikawa Monnosuke II, Iwai Hanshirô IV, and (possibly) Iwai Karumo on a Landing Backstage

Katsukawa Shunsho's backstage scene of Ichikawa Monnosuke II, Iwai Hanshiro IV, and possibly Iwai Karumo on a landing within the theater, dating to about 1775, exemplifies the Katsukawa school's distinctive interest in scenes of kabuki actors away from the stage proper. The print, held by the Art Institute of Chicago, places the three actors on a stairway or landing within the theater building, an architectural detail that anchors the scene in the lived reality of an Edo kabuki theater. Ichikawa Monnosuke II was a tachiyaku of the leading Ichikawa line, while Iwai Hanshiro IV was among the most celebrated onnagata of the era and Iwai Karumo a younger member of the same Iwai acting family. The gathering of multiple stars in an informal interior would have offered Edo fans the pleasure of imagined access to a normally hidden world. Shunsho's Edo ukiyo-e yakusha-e, even in such ostensibly casual scenes, retains the Katsukawa school's signature actor-likeness approach: each figure is identifiable not by stage costume but by specific facial features and personal robes. The hosoban format, likely joined across multiple sheets, allows the three figures to occupy distinct spatial registers along the staircase, building a measured sense of architectural depth unusual in single-figure yakusha-e. Within Shunsho's broader oeuvre, gakuya and backstage prints constitute one of the most innovative subjects, anticipating later interest in the working life of theatrical performers and providing rare documentation of the offstage architecture and social conduct of Edo kabuki.