The Actor Ichikawa Ebizo as Kudo Suketsune Disguised as a Komuso in the Play Waka Murasaki Edokko Soga, Performed at the Ichimura Theater in the First Month, 1792

Katsukawa Shunsho here captures Ichikawa Ebizo as Kudo Suketsune disguised as a komuso, an itinerant flute-playing monk, in Waka Murasaki Edokko Soga, mounted at the Ichimura Theater in the first month of 1792. The Soga revenge cycle was perennial New Year material on the Edo stage, and Kudo Suketsune is the villainous foil whose murder of the Soga brothers' father drives the entire dramatic structure. The actor uses the komuso disguise -- with its characteristic large woven basket hat completely obscuring the face -- to move through the play under cover, a device that gives the role its theatrical interest. Shunsho's yakusha-e responds to this by emphasising costume, posture and the iconic hat rather than facial expression, while the cartouche supplies the identifications that an Edo theatre-goer would otherwise have known instantly. By 1792 Shunsho was in the final years of his career, but the Katsukawa school still dominated Edo ukiyo-e actor portraiture, with his pupils Shunko and Shun'ei active alongside him. This impression is held in the Clarence Buckingham Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago. It documents a late example of Shunsho's continued productivity, and at the same time records a specific performance moment from the Ichimura kaomise programme that opened the kabuki season of Kansei 4.