The Actor Akizuki Sampei from Osaka Standing on a Galloping Horse (right), in the Play Dai Kyokuba

This vigorous yakusha-e by Katsukawa Shunsho, preserved at the Art Institute of Chicago and dated 1767, depicts the Osaka actor Akizuki Sampei performing a feat of trick horsemanship in the play Dai Kyokuba. The figure stands upright atop a galloping mount, his costume billowing as the horse plunges forward, and the composition captures the suspended drama of a Kabuki specialty that combined theatrical performance with equestrian acrobatics. Shunsho's drawing emphasizes the actor's poised balance and the muscular tension of the horse, qualities that distinguished his approach to figure design within the broader tradition of Edo ukiyo-e. By dating from the years immediately surrounding the Katsukawa school's emergence, the print belongs to the moment when Shunsho was reorienting actor prints away from the generalized facial conventions of earlier yakusha-e toward portraits that recorded individual likeness. Although the figure here is shown in dramatic motion rather than static portraiture, the same attention to specificity is evident in the rendering of Sampei's features and bearing. The image also documents a touring performer whose appearance in Edo was a notable theatrical event, suggesting how prints of this kind functioned simultaneously as souvenirs, advertisements, and records of Kabuki history. As an early Katsukawa school production, it offers insight into how Shunsho expanded the visual repertoire of Edo ukiyo-e by integrating action, spectacle, and personality into a single coherent design that would influence generations of actor-print artists.