Bando Hikosaburo III Holding a Hand Pupper

This Katsukawa Shunsho yakusha-e portrays Bando Hikosaburo III holding a hand puppet. Hand puppets and small props were a recurring feature of Edo kabuki, used in roles that combined live acting with stylised manipulation of figurative objects, and they offered actors -- and printmakers -- an opportunity for a closely observed, intimate gesture. Bando Hikosaburo III was one of the leading male performers of the An'ei era, and Shunsho repeatedly portrayed him in both heroic and quieter character roles. The Katsukawa school of which Shunsho was the founder reshaped Edo ukiyo-e actor portraiture in the early 1770s by insisting that each player be drawn with his own face, his own physique and his own bearing; this print exemplifies that programme by placing the recognisable Hikosaburo and his small puppet within a quiet hosoban-format composition. The interaction between actor and puppet, head turned slightly toward the small figure he supports, gives the print an unusual psychological intimacy in comparison with the more outwardly heroic Katsukawa designs. The Cleveland Museum of Art preserves the impression. As part of that institution's substantial holdings of Shunsho and Katsukawa school yakusha-e, it contributes to a broader picture of how late eighteenth-century Edo theatre culture treated its actors as individual personalities worthy of careful and varied visual record.