The actor Ichikawa Ebizo V as Asahina Tobei

Utagawa Kunisada designed this striking yakusha-e portrait of the kabuki star Ichikawa Ebizo V in the role of Asahina Tobei in 1836, capturing one of the period's most magnetic stage personalities at the height of his fame. Kunisada, later to assume the prestigious name Toyokuni III in 1844, had by this date established himself as the dominant designer of actor prints in late Edo ukiyo-e, eclipsing rival studios through sheer volume and the unmatched specificity of his likenesses. Asahina Tobei is a rough-tongued chivalrous commoner type drawn from the otokodate tradition, and Ebizo V brings his celebrated aragoto bravura to the role: jaw set, eyes fixed in the crossed gaze of mie, body coiled with the muscular tension that audiences at Edo's licensed theatres came to see. Kunisada renders the actor's distinctive facial features with the close attention to nigao likeness that distinguished his work, then sets the figure against a flat ground that throws every detail of costume and posture into prominence. The print belongs to the mature phase of Edo ukiyo-e in which yakusha-e had become both a fan industry and an art form, and Kunisada's reputation rested on his ability to issue a likeness of a major star within days of a notable performance. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this impression, and its catalogue entry preserves the documentation grounding the work in the specific Edo theatre season for which it was produced.