Ichikawa Danjūrō IV in the Role of Kagekiyo in the Play 'Enlightenment,' from a Series of Portraits of Danjūrō

Ichikawa Danjūrō IV in the Role of Kagekiyo, in the Play 'Enlightenment,' from a series of portraits of Danjūrō, is a luxury surimono actor print by Utagawa Toyokuni II (signed 'Toyokuni ga'), dating to about 1834 and held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession JP1750). Surimono actor prints were a small but distinctive category of yakusha-e: privately commissioned single sheets, printed on heavy paper with deluxe pigments and blind embossing, that allowed an Edo kabuki connoisseur or a fan club (renchū) to mark a memorial occasion or to honor a particular performance. Toyoshige's design pictures Ichikawa Danjūrō IV — actually the Hannya-fudō stage name of Ichikawa Danjūrō VII (1791-1859) acting in revival of an old Danjūrō role — in the role of the medieval warrior-monk Taira no Kagekiyo, a figure from the Heike monogatari cycle and one of the standard repertory roles of the Ichikawa line. The composition isolates the actor's full-length figure against a quiet ground, with the role's identifying robe and sword carefully rendered. The Met's impression entered the museum's collection as part of the standing surimono holdings and remains one of the most accessible Toyoshige surimono outside Japan.