The Actor Ichikawa Danjuro V as Soga no Dozaburo (?) in the Play Shida Yuzuriha Horai Soga (?), Performed at the Morita Theater (?) in the First Month, 1775 (?)

Katsukawa Shunsho shows Ichikawa Danjuro V tentatively identified as Soga no Dozaburo in Shida Yuzuriha Horai Soga, possibly staged at the Morita Theater in the first month of 1775. Dozaburo is the younger half-brother sometimes introduced in expanded versions of the Soga revenge cycle, and the role offered Danjuro V an opportunity to play a figure adjacent to, but distinct from, the more famous Goro and Juro brothers. Soga plays were the centerpiece of the New Year season in Edo kabuki, and Danjuro V, head of the Ichikawa line that owned the aragoto tradition, was an indispensable presence in the annual cycle. Shunsho's hosoban print, held by the Art Institute of Chicago, presents the actor standing in a wide aragoto stance, the costume's bold pattern flattened into a few decorative blocks of indigo, gray, and red, and the heavy kumadori make-up reduced to angular lines on a white face. The Katsukawa school's mature Edo ukiyo-e yakusha-e style is fully visible: a likeness specific to Danjuro V, a controlled palette, and the printed contour line that does most of the descriptive work. The persistent question marks in the cataloguing reflect the ordinary uncertainties of attributing eighteenth-century actor prints whose original surrounding documentation has not always survived. Regardless of role identification, the sheet stands as a primary record of Shunsho's work for the most important kabuki line of his generation.