Takanawa between Nihonbashi and Shinagawa, Ichikawa Omezo as Oinishi Kuranosuke

Takanawa between Nihonbashi and Shinagawa, Ichikawa Omezo as Oinishi Kuranosuke is a woodblock print attributed to Utagawa Kunisada and held in the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria collection as documented through ukiyo-e.org. The composition belongs to the rich tradition of Chushingura-themed yakusha-e in which famous kabuki actors are depicted as the loyal retainers of Asano Naganori. Oinishi Kuranosuke is the kabuki name used for Oishi Kuranosuke, the chief retainer who led the forty-seven ronin in their 1703 raid on Kira Yoshinaka, and Ichikawa Omezo was one of the distinguished actors of the Ichikawa lineage who took the role. The geographical reference to Takanawa, located between the Edo cities of Nihonbashi and Shinagawa along the Tokaido, situates the print within the broader convention of merging meisho-e place imagery with actor portraiture, a hybrid genre that Kunisada and his Utagawa school collaborators effectively defined. The design's confident outline, the carefully drawn costume and weapon detail, and the recognizable facial type are characteristic of Kunisada's mature studio practice. As a single sheet within this hybrid genre, the print is a particularly clear example of how Edo ukiyo-e bound location, role, and celebrity actor into one tightly designed image and demonstrates why Chushingura prints remain so central to the study of late-Edo yakusha-e.