Onoe Matsusuke I as Ebisu, from The Stand-In Seven Gods of Good Fortune

In this sheet from a Katsukawa Shunsho series casting kabuki players as the Seven Gods of Good Fortune (Shichifukujin), Onoe Matsusuke I appears as Ebisu, the god of fishermen, merchants and honest labour, identifiable by his characteristic fishing rod and the large sea bream he traditionally holds. This kind of mitate composition, in which famous actors are shown as legendary or auspicious figures, was a recurrent device in Edo ukiyo-e and especially well suited to the New Year season, when prints invoking the Seven Gods circulated widely as auspicious gifts. By presenting living players in these divine roles, Shunsho fuses the worlds of theatre and folk religion in a way that flattered both the actor and the buyer. The portraiture remains rooted in observed likeness: Matsusuke is recognisably himself even while wearing the attributes of Ebisu, and the figure is rendered with the firm contour and clean colour planes typical of mature Katsukawa school yakusha-e. The print is held in the Cleveland Museum of Art, which preserves a substantial body of Shunsho and Katsukawa school material. The series as a whole demonstrates the Katsukawa school's expansion of actor portraiture beyond strict stage roles into a more playful, intertextual mode that anticipated the elaborate parody prints of the Kansei and Bunka periods. It is also a reminder that yakusha-e were embedded in the everyday rituals of Edo townspeople, not only in the theatre district.