Ichikawa Danjuro VII as Kan Shojo in the Mt. Tenpai Scene, from the series Famous Kabuki Plays

Ichikawa Danjuro VII as Kan Shojo in the Mt. Tenpai Scene, from the series Famous Kabuki Plays, dated 1814 in the Cleveland Museum of Art catalogue, is an early Edo ukiyo-e yakusha-e by Utagawa Kunisada at the moment when his actor portraits were beginning to assert themselves in the Edo market. Ichikawa Danjuro VII, head of the most prestigious Edo kabuki lineage, was the actor with whose career Kunisada's reputation was most closely linked in the 1810s and 1820s. The play Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami, with its Mt. Tenpai scene depicting Sugawara no Michizane - the deified poet-statesman Kan Shojo - in fierce, vengeful aspect, was one of the great roles in the Danjuro household repertory. Kunisada renders Danjuro VII in the climactic mie of the scene, with face contorted into the aragoto fury that Edo audiences treasured, and dressed in the costume associated with Michizane's transformation. The composition presses the figure forward against an undefined ground, focusing attention on the actor's exaggerated facial expression. As an early Kunisada, the print bears the influence of his teacher Toyokuni I but already shows the broad shoulders, large face, and strong key-block line that would soon define his mature manner. The Cleveland impression, with its strong reds and clear black outlines, documents both a defining moment in Danjuro VII's career and the emergence of Kunisada as a leading yakusha-e specialist of late Bunka and early Bunsei Edo.