Ichikawa Monnosuke II as Urabe no Suetake

Held by the Cleveland Museum of Art and dated 1781, this Katsukawa Shunzan color woodblock print depicts the actor Ichikawa Monnosuke II in the role of Urabe no Suetake, one of the Shitennō or Four Heavenly Kings who served the late-tenth-century warrior Minamoto no Yorimitsu (Raikō). The print is the left sheet (1921.314.a) of a [triptych](/glossary/triptych) in which all three of Yorimitsu's surviving Heavenly Kings are recast as members of a contemporary Edo yomawari or night watch, a mitate (parody-substitution) framework that overlays the heroic Heian warrior cycle on a recognizable urban institution of the eighteenth-century city. Ichikawa Monnosuke II (1743–1794) was a leading Edo actor of the An'ei era and a frequent subject of Katsukawa-school portraiture. Shunzan's design adheres to the school's standard documentary conventions: individualized facial likeness, role-specific costume and props, and identifying mon (family crests) on the kimono. The 1781 date places the print at the start of Shunzan's documented career and within the same publication as the larger triptych composition that Cleveland holds in complete form (1921.314), providing both an early dated reference point for the artist and a clear example of his actor-print mode at the moment when the Katsukawa school's documentary likeness convention was at its commercial peak.