Iwai Hanshiro V Yakusha hanjimono

The Grabhorn Collection includes two examples from Kunisada’s early series of actor portraits with rebuses (visual puns). Above a bust portrait of the onnagata star Iwai Hanshirō V in the role of a maid, a pink bean-shaped cartouche contains a three-part rebus identifying the actor. The first part of the actor’s name, Iwai, is rendered as a girl riding on a man’s shoulder in the obitoki iwai, a ceremony celebrating the girl’s first wearing of an obi around age seven. To the left is a hanko, or signature seal, supplying the sound han, and a white (shiro) rabbit provides the two final syllables, shi and ro. For good measure, only half the rabbit is shown: in Japanese han also means “half.” To the left of the cartouche is a money box with the word kinsenryō (1,000 gold ryō coins) written on its lid. Not coincidentally, senryō (1,000 ryō) was a term used during the Edo period to denote the most popular actors, whose salary was said to exceed 1,000 ryō per year. Edo urbanites took great pleasure in deciphering clever visual puns of the sort provided by this print.