The Actor Bando Matataro IV as Gempachibyoe in the Play Mutsu no Hana Ume no Kaomise (Snowflakes: Plum Blossom Kaomise), Performed at the Ichimura Theater from the First Day of the Eleventh Month, 1769

Documented through ukiyo-e.org from the Art Institute of Chicago's holdings, this Katsukawa Shunsho yakusha-e shows Bando Matataro IV as Gempachibyoe in the play Mutsu no Hana Ume no Kaomise (Snowflakes: Plum Blossom Kaomise), performed at the Ichimura Theater from the first day of the Eleventh Month, 1769. Eleventh-month productions were kaomise — the seasonal opening that introduced each theater's roster of contracted actors — and prints commemorating them were among the most economically important yakusha-e of the year. Shunsho, as founder of the Katsukawa school, used the kaomise season to issue likenesses of key actors in their new roles, and Bando Matataro IV here takes a forward-leaning martial pose suited to the supporting tachiyaku character Gempachibyoe. The figure occupies a clean ground that throws full emphasis onto the patterned costume and the actor's recognizable facial features. Shunsho's drawing is firm but never stiff, and the costume's repeating motifs are printed with the crispness expected of leading Edo ukiyo-e workshops. The combination of plum blossom and snow in the play's poetic title is echoed in the seasonal imagery of the kaomise itself; the print's restrained color register matches that wintry mood. As a kaomise yakusha-e of the late 1760s, it represents the Katsukawa school at its formative moment, when Shunsho was decisively shifting the genre toward likeness-based actor portraiture.