The Actor Ichikawa Ebizō (Danjūrō V) as the Elderly Samurai Sasaki Ganryū (?)

Previous cataloguers have assumed this rare actor print represents the famous actor Ebizō, who had just relinquished the stage name Danjūrō V, performing the role of Hige no Ikyū (literally, the bearded Ikyū), the villainous samurai who is one central characters in the popular play Sukeroku: Flower of Edo (Sukeroku yukari no Edo-zakura). Ebizō, however, did not perform this role during the time this print must have been published (based on the signature style), but it may, however, represent him performing the role of Sasaki Ganryū in the drama White-haired Ganryū (Hana utsugi shiraga Ganryū 花うつぎ白髪岸柳), in the fourth lunar month of 1792 at the Ichimuraza Theater. Appropriate to the role of an elderly samurai, Ebizō is portrayed with white wig and beard and dramatic red suji guma makeup. There is another print by Shun’ei of a similarly costumed Ebizō, which we can assume is a depiction of the same role (Waseda University Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, acc. no. 201-6109).

At the same theater, in the eleventh month of the previous year (Kansei 3), there was a momentous shūmei (announcement of the change of stage names), in which the actors Ichikawa Danjūrō V and Ichikawa Ebizō IV respectively adopted the names of Ichikawa Ebizō and Ichikawa Danjūrō VI. Note the two characters used to write Ebizō 鰕蔵 in this case are different than the three characters traditionally used to write the name: 海老蔵.