Ichikawa Ebizō IV as Takemura Sadanojō in the Play Koinyōbō Somewake Tazuna

This 1794 okubi-e by Toshusai Sharaku, held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, shows Ichikawa Ebizo IV in the role of Takemura Sadanojo in the play Koinyobo Somewake Tazuna (The Colored Reins of a Loving Wife), one of the kabuki dramas running in Edo during Sharaku's brief productive window with the publisher Tsutaya Juzaburo. The sheet belongs to the body of yakusha-e for which Sharaku is now most celebrated within the larger history of Edo ukiyo-e.

Ebizo IV is drawn with the full weight of his stage authority. The face is broad, the jaw heavy, the brows set in a low frown, and the mouth pulled into a tight, slightly downturned line that suggests the character's bitterness within the play's moral pressures. The eyes are narrowed and unaligned in their direction, a Sharaku habit that ties the portrait to a moment of action rather than to a posed studio likeness; the actor seems to be watching another character cross the stage just off-print. The deep lines along the nose and around the mouth are rendered without prettification and contribute to the sense of an older, hardened man rather than an idealized stage type.

The role's costume and hair are described with the firm, calligraphic keyblock that Sharaku's collaborators on the carving and printing end of the workshop made famous. The kimono pattern is balanced against the dark mica ground common to Tsutaya's luxury actor sheets, with color held to a careful range of warm flesh, muted reds, and deep blacks.

As a single example within Sharaku's roughly 140 surviving designs, this print is a particularly clear illustration of how he treated senior actors of the Ichikawa line: with respect for their stage gravity but no concession to flattering convention. The Metropolitan Museum of Art retains the impression in its Asian Art collection.