The Actor Segawa Yujiro I as Matsukaze, Sister of Togashi no Saemon, in the Play Gohiiki Kanjincho (Your Favorite Play Kanjincho [The Subscription List]), Performed at the Nakamura Theater from the First Day of the Eleventh Month, 1773

Documented through ukiyo-e.org from the Art Institute of Chicago, this Katsukawa Shunsho yakusha-e portrays the onnagata Segawa Yujiro I as Matsukaze, sister of Togashi no Saemon, in Gohiiki Kanjincho (Your Favorite Play Kanjincho [The Subscription List]), performed at the Nakamura Theater from the first day of the Eleventh Month, 1773. Kanjincho — the Subscription List — is a foundational kabuki story drawn from the noh play Ataka, in which the fugitive Minamoto no Yoshitsune and his retainer Benkei pass a barrier guarded by Togashi. The Gohiiki Kanjincho variation expands the cast around that core, here giving Togashi a sister, Matsukaze, played by the celebrated onnagata Yujiro I. Shunsho's print places Yujiro alone against a blank ground, the figure costumed in elaborate kimono with the trailing sleeves and softened posture of female roles. As the founder of the Katsukawa school, Shunsho had built the Edo ukiyo-e standard of individuated likeness for actors of all role types, and Yujiro's distinct features are visible beneath the elegant onnagata mask of stage makeup. The eleventh-month kaomise context made the print part of the theater's annual season-opening publicity, while its survival in major museum holdings testifies to the durable collectability of Katsukawa school yakusha-e in the wider history of Edo ukiyo-e.