The Actor Nakamura Nakazo I as Kakogawa Honzo in Komuso Attire in the Play Kanadehon Chushingura, Performed at the Ichimura Theater in the Seventh Month, 1783

Katsukawa Shunsho depicts Nakamura Nakazo I as Kakogawa Honzo disguised as a komuso, a wandering Fuke-sect monk with a basket-like tengai hat covering his face, in the seventh-month 1783 Ichimura Theater staging of Kanadehon Chushingura. This play, the canonical dramatization of the forty-seven ronin vendetta, was the most performed work in the Edo kabuki repertoire, and the Honzo komuso scene was one of its high points: a senior retainer torn between loyalties, hiding his identity beneath the woven hat and shakuhachi flute of an itinerant ascetic. Shunsho's design isolates Nakazo against a pale ground so the bulk of the tengai and the diagonal of the staff dominate the composition. As a leading designer of yakusha-e in the Edo ukiyo-e tradition, Shunsho built the Katsukawa school's reputation on precisely these moments, the print serving as a mnemonic for theatergoers who wanted to recall a specific performance and a specific actor's interpretation. The print is preserved in the Art Institute of Chicago and reproduced on ukiyo-e.org. Nakazo I (1736-1790) was known for his komuso scenes, a specialty Shunsho would have understood his audience to recognize, and the long compositional history of komuso-disguise prints in Edo theatrical printmaking gave this image considerable resonance among contemporary viewers. The 1780s mark a period when Shunsho's leadership of the Katsukawa school was secure and the next generation, including Shunko and Shun'ei, was beginning to extend the master's portrait conventions.