The Actor Ichimura Uzaemon IX as Nagoya Sanzaburo in the play "Higashiyama-dono Kabuki no Tsuitachi," performed at the Ichimura Theater in the eleventh month, 1766

This 1766 hosoban benizuri-e color woodblock print at the Art Institute of Chicago depicts the actor Ichimura Uzaemon IX in the role of Nagoya Sanzaburo in the kabuki play Higashiyama-dono Kabuki no Tsuitachi, performed at the Ichimura Theater in the eleventh month of 1766. Nagoya Sanzaburo was a stock dandy-hero of the kabuki stage, traditionally paired in dramatic rivalry with Fuwa Banzaemon and associated with the legendary world of the early seventeenth-century kabuki-mono, the swaggering urban dandies whose flamboyant dress and behavior gave kabuki itself its name. Ichimura Uzaemon IX (1725-1785) was both an actor and the manager of the Ichimura Theater, one of Edo's three licensed kabuki houses, and his playing of such roles was a signature attraction. The hosoban benizuri-e format, with its restrained pink, green, and black palette, was the standard medium for actor prints in the mid-1760s. Shigemasa's print preserves a specific theatrical moment - the eleventh-month kaomise production - and his composition centers Uzaemon in characteristic action pose. The Art Institute of Chicago's impression is part of an important block of mid-1760s actor prints by Shigemasa in the collection.