Arashi Kichisaburō II as Tsukushi no Gonroku (from Keisei hako denju)

This 1804 (first month) Osaka kamigata-e [yakusha-e](/glossary/yakusha-e) by Shōkōsai Hanbei, held by the British Museum (registration 2004,0327,0.3), depicts the actor Arashi Kichisaburō II in the role of Tsukushi no Gonroku from the play Keisei hako denju (傾城箱伝授), staged at the Kadō Theatre during the first month of the Bunka era. Arashi Kichisaburō II was one of the principal Osaka tachiyaku (male leads) of the late Kansei and early Bunka periods — the role would later be inherited by his son Arashi Kitsusaburō I, whose 1821 death was commemorated by Shōkōsai's pupil Shunkōsai Hokushū in two memorial portraits — and Shōkōsai's portrait captures Kichisaburō II in the streetwise-outlaw register that the Tsukushi no Gonroku part demanded. The half-length composition follows the mature kamigata-e template Shōkōsai inherited from his teacher Ryūkōsai Jokei: tight cropping of the actor in costume, careful inscription of the role name and actor name, and the artist's signature alongside the publisher's mark. The print measures as a standard color woodblock print in the kamigata format and was acquired by the British Museum in 2004 as part of a small group purchase that consolidated the museum's holdings of late-Kansei and early-Bunka Osaka prints. The Kadō Theatre had been one of the three principal Osaka kabuki venues since the eighteenth century, and the 1804 Bunka first-month production captured here was among the season's major bookings, giving Shōkōsai's portrait both its documentary specificity and its commercial appeal to the Osaka fan-club audience.