The Actor Ichikawa Danjuro V as Prince Koretaka Disguised as the Courier Izutsu Chuji, in the Play Yamato Kano Ariwara Keizu, Performed at the Nakamura Theater in the Fifth Month, 1781

Katsukawa Shunsho here records Ichikawa Danjuro V as Prince Koretaka disguised as the courier Izutsu Chuji in Yamato Kano Ariwara Keizu, staged at the Nakamura Theater in the fifth month of 1781. The play belonged to the genre of jidaimono in which Heian-court genealogies were dramatised with elaborate identity reversals, a perfect vehicle for the Edo aragoto star, whose audiences delighted in seeing him pass between nobility and disguise within a single performance. Shunsho's yakusha-e isolates Danjuro V in his courier's guise, the hat and travelling robes plainly rendered while the painted face retains the heroic identity beneath. This kind of layered portrayal exemplifies the Katsukawa school's approach to actor portraiture: the recognisable physiognomy of the player is preserved even when costume marks him as someone else, allowing the print to function simultaneously as a portrait, a role record and a souvenir. The hosoban sheet's narrow proportions and full-figure composition are characteristic of Shunsho's mature manner, and the print is held in the Clarence Buckingham Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago. As one of a series of Shunsho prints documenting the 1781 Nakamura programmes, it provides a precise visual record of the costuming and stage presence of Edo's leading Ichikawa star at the height of the Tenmei period.