Sumo Wrestlers of the Western Group: (right) Kashiwado Kandayu from Edo, (left) and Inagawa Masaemon from Osaka

Held by the Art Institute of Chicago, this Katsukawa Shunsho sumo-e composition presents two wrestlers of the western group, Kashiwado Kandayu from Edo on the right and Inagawa Masaemon from Osaka on the left, in the dignified standing pose conventional for the genre. Sumo prints formed a notable secondary specialty of the Katsukawa school alongside its principal commitment to yakusha-e actor portraits, and Shunsho's body of sumo-e provided contemporary audiences with collectible likenesses of the major wrestlers competing on the late-eighteenth-century Edo and Osaka tournament circuits. The composition pairs the two figures in symmetrical opposition, the heavy bodies rendered with attention to musculature and weight while the faces carry the individualized features by which sumo enthusiasts recognized each man. The geographic identification, with Kashiwado representing Edo and Inagawa representing Osaka, framed the print within the period's ongoing east-west rivalry of regional sumo houses. As founder of the Katsukawa school of Edo ukiyo-e, Shunsho extended his commitment to named, individualized portraiture from the theater into the sumo arena, and his contribution to the sumo-e genre laid the groundwork for the more elaborate nineteenth-century productions of the Utagawa school. The Art Institute's sheet preserves a primary document of the 1779 wrestling season and a representative example of how the Katsukawa workshop chronicled the major spectacles of Edo popular culture beyond the kabuki stage.