Kasuya Takenori, from the series "Parody of the Seven Spear-bearing Samurai of Yanagase (Ito no Yanagase shichihon yari ume)"

Held by the Art Institute of Chicago, Kasuya Takenori is part of Shunman's surimono series Parody of the Seven Spear-bearing Samurai of Yanagase (Ito no Yanagase shichihon yari ume), produced around 1803-1804 in the unusual junigiriban (twelve-cut) surimono format. The Seven Spears of Yanagase refers to the heroic deeds of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's seven leading warriors at the Battle of Shizugatake in 1583, an event celebrated in countless later prints and stories. The mitate or parody convention typical of surimono replaces the original samurai with figures from contemporary urban life - usually beautiful women, courtesans, or genre subjects - allowing the kyoka poets to play on the contrast between historical heroism and Edo elegance. Shunman, drawing on the literary fluency that distinguishes his surimono, treats the Kasuya Takenori figure with the muted palette and careful framing characteristic of his late style. The shape of the junigiriban sheet - a smaller, irregularly proportioned cut - and the dating to around 1803-1804 place the print in the most prolific phase of Shunman's surimono career, when he was producing series after series for the leading Edo poetry circles. The Art Institute of Chicago's collection of Shunman's parody-series surimono is especially strong, allowing scholars to track the development of the mitate tradition through one of its most refined practitioners.