The actor Sawamura Sôjûrô VII in the role of Mizuno

This yakusha-e portrait depicts Sawamura Sôjûrô VII in the role of Mizuno—likely Mizuno Jurozaemon, the samurai whose conflict with the otokodate Banzuiin Chôbei drives the play 'Banzuiin Chôbei.' Shunsen's characteristic approach centers the actor's face and upper torso against an unadorned ground, often enriched by subtle bokashi gradations that throw the painted features into psychological relief. The print would have been issued through Watanabe Shôzaburô, the publisher who underwrote Shunsen's major series. Working with the studio's senior block carvers and printers, Shunsen drew on the Edo precedent of Sharaku and Toyokuni I while refining the genre with modern sensibilities of likeness and individual character study. Within his corpus of more than two hundred actor portraits, this image extends the yakusha-e tradition of recording not only the costume and makeup of a specific performance but the physiognomic identity of the actor beneath.