The Actor Ichimura Kamezo I as Tachibanaya Hikoso in the play "Ume Momiji Date no Okido," performed at the Ichimura Theater in the eleventh month

Suzuki Harunobu's print of the actor Ichimura Kamezo I as Tachibanaya Hikoso, dated to about 1760, belongs to the artist's relatively small body of kabuki imagery. The role is identified in the title as appearing in 'Ume Momiji Date no Okido,' a play performed at Edo's Ichimura Theater in the eleventh month, the traditional opening month of the kabuki year. Harunobu, who is far better known for bijin-ga than for actor portraits, approaches the figure with the same slender, planar elegance he used for women, sidestepping the theatrical aragoto exaggeration that other artists employed for similar subjects. The actor's costume, stance, and prop are recorded with restraint, more in the spirit of a fashion document than of a stage souvenir. The print predates the full-color nishiki-e revolution of 1765, in which Harunobu played a central role, so its palette is limited and its impact rests largely on the strength of its drawing. The Art Institute of Chicago, the museum source for this record, dates the impression to roughly 1760 and conserves it as evidence of Harunobu's range during the period before his commercial breakthrough. For collectors of Suzuki Harunobu, such yakusha-e are scarce and valuable, demonstrating that even in a category dominated by specialists like the Torii school he could produce work of distinct character within the conventions of mid-eighteenth-century Edo theatrical printmaking.