Actor Ichikawa Sansho

This single-sheet work is from an untitled series of popular actors in summer. The actor better known as Ichikawa Danjūrō VII (1791-1859) is depicted with a youthful, relaxed expression without stage make-up. Danjūrō was known to be extremely obsessed with the costumes and props of the theater, and is not only rendered wearing a robe with his mimasu family crest along with smoking pipe and carved netsuke, but he is further adorned with obi sash and tobacco pouch decorated with designs of dragons and carp, showing him to be much flashier than other actors in the series. (text by Kurahashi Masae, English translation by Laura J Mueller)