The Actor Matsumoto Koshiro IV as Honcho-maru Tsunagoro (?) in the Play Hono Nitta Daimyojin (?), Performed at the Morita Theater (?) in the Seventh Month, 1777 (?)

This Katsukawa Shunsho yakusha-e at the Art Institute of Chicago depicts Matsumoto Koshiro IV as Honcho-maru Tsunagoro in the play Hono Nitta Daimyojin, tentatively associated with a seventh-month, 1777 performance at the Morita Theater. The cataloguing's question marks reflect the careful caution museum scholars exercise when matching ukiyo-e prints to playbills not all of which survive intact for the Edo theatrical seasons. Koshiro IV was a powerful presence on the Edo kabuki stage, equally suited to noble heroes and to the more menacing katakiyaku villain roles, and Shunsho's portraits register the actor's distinctive heavy brow and broad jaw across many sheets. As Edo ukiyo-e yakusha-e, the print continues the Katsukawa school's project of fixing each actor's likeness with enough specificity that fans could recognize their favorites without relying on captions or crests alone. The hosoban format, single-figure composition, and restrained ground that the studio standardized are evident throughout. Even tentatively identified productions like this one contribute to the larger archive: every confidently attributed sheet, when combined with surviving playbills, theater diaries, and contemporary criticism, helps build the season-by-season picture of late-eighteenth-century Edo kabuki performance that the Katsukawa school's documentary mission has bequeathed to modern scholarship.