The Actors Nakamura Nakazo I as Matsukaze (right), Ichikawa Komazo II as Ariwara no Yukihira (center), and Iwai Hanshiro IV as Murasame (left), in the Play Kuni no Hana Ono no Itsumoji, Performed at the Nakamura Theater in the Eleventh Month, 1771

This color woodblock print by Katsukawa Shunsho records a kabuki performance at the Nakamura Theater in the eleventh month of 1771, depicting Nakamura Nakazo I as Matsukaze on the right, Ichikawa Komazo II as the exiled courtier Ariwara no Yukihira in the centre, and Iwai Hanshiro IV as Matsukaze's sister Murasame on the left, in the play Kuni no Hana Ono no Itsumoji. The legend of Yukihira and the two saltmaking sisters Matsukaze and Murasame had long inspired noh, classical poetry, and Edo kabuki, and the figural arrangement here references the established triangular composition associated with the subject. Shunsho stages the three actors with the kind of individualised portraiture that the Katsukawa school had introduced to Edo ukiyo-e, rendering each face with observed features rather than the generic masks of earlier yakusha-e. Hanshiro IV, one of the most celebrated onnagata performers of his era, is paired against the established male roles in costume and stance that flatter each performer's stage presence. The print is preserved in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, where it documents the Edo theatrical season of 1771 and stands as a representative example of how Shunsho and the Katsukawa school used the multi-figure actor print to commemorate elaborate kabuki productions.