The Actor Ichimura Uzaemon IX as the Yakko Matahei in the Play Mukashi Otoko Yuki no Hinagata, Performed at the Ichimura Theater in the Eleventh Month, 1781

This Katsukawa Shunsho yakusha-e at the Art Institute of Chicago depicts the actor Ichimura Uzaemon IX in the role of the yakko (samurai's servant) Matahei from the play Mukashi Otoko Yuki no Hinagata, performed at the Ichimura Theater in the eleventh month of 1781. The yakko was a stock character of late-eighteenth-century kabuki, the lower-class retainer whose loyalty to his samurai master was often tested through the dramatic engine of the play, and the role permitted broader gesture and louder costume than the more decorous samurai parts. Shunsho composes Uzaemon IX in a characteristic yakko stance, the costume's bold patterning serving as visual signature of the role while the facial features carry the burden of identification. As founder of the Katsukawa school of Edo ukiyo-e, Shunsho established the convention that yakusha-e prints should treat performers as named individuals rather than as generic theatrical types, and even within the stock role of yakko he maintains the individualized portrait approach. Uzaemon IX was the manager of the Ichimura Theater as well as a leading actor, and his appearance in his own house's eleventh-month kaomise production marked the theatrical season's premiere event. The Art Institute's sheet preserves the print as a primary document of the 1781 kaomise season and as a representative example of how the Katsukawa school documented Edo theatrical life across the late eighteenth century.