The Actor Matsumoto Koshiro IV as Sagami Jiro Disguised as Ambaiyoshi Gorohachi in the Play Oyoroi Ebido Shinozuka, Performed at the Nakamura Theater in the Eleventh Month, 1772

Held by the Art Institute of Chicago and documented through ukiyo-e.org, this Katsukawa Shunsho yakusha-e shows Matsumoto Koshiro IV as Sagami Jiro disguised as the seasoning seller Ambaiyoshi Gorohachi in Oyoroi Ebido Shinozuka, performed at the Nakamura Theater in the Eleventh Month, 1772. Matsumoto Koshiro IV was one of the most powerful tachiyaku actors of Edo kabuki, known for villainous and aragoto-inflected parts, and the play features the layered identity beloved by kabuki dramatists: a samurai (Sagami Jiro) concealed beneath the costume and trade of a humble street vendor (the seasoning seller Gorohachi). Shunsho, founder of the Katsukawa school and the leading practitioner of Edo ukiyo-e yakusha-e, captures Koshiro IV in the vendor disguise — likely showing him with a peddler's box and plebeian dress — while preserving the steel of the samurai beneath through his recognizable facial structure and bearing. The eleventh-month kaomise season for which the print was made was the theater's most prestigious slot, and prints of the troupe's leading roles circulated widely as commemorative imagery. The single-figure composition against a blank ground is typical of the Katsukawa school's mature approach, where costume detail and facial likeness do all the narrative work. The print exemplifies how Shunsho turned a moment of theatrical disguise into a graphically legible portrait that Edo ukiyo-e collectors could keep and revisit.