Banzuiin Chōbei Meeting His End at the Residence of Terasai Kanshin (Banzuiin Chōbei Terasai Kanshin no yashiki ni oite saigo gōyū no zu)

This 1856 ōban color woodblock print by Utagawa Kunitsuna I, held by Waseda University Library (accession number 201-5892), depicts the celebrated final scene of Banzuiin Chōbei — the legendary seventeenth-century Edo otokodate (chivalrous commoner) and head of the city's labor-broker syndicate — meeting his end at the residence of Mizuno Jūrōzaemon (here transposed as Terasai Kanshin in conformity with Edo censorship conventions). The Banzuiin Chōbei legend was one of the most enduring popular-narrative subjects of Edo-period drama and visual culture, dramatized in kabuki, jōruri puppet theater, and [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) from the late seventeenth century through the Meiji era.