Actor Onoe Matsusuke as Ōboshi Yuranosuke

Related to the play Kanadehon Chūshingura 仮名手本忠臣蔵, performed at the Kawarazaki Theater in the fifth lunar month of 1795. This print depicts the Kabuki actor Onoe Matsuke in the role of Ōboshi Yuranosuke, the main character of Chūshingura. It is based on one of the three different productions presented in Edo in the year 1795. Wearing his costume in a slightly untidy manner and holding a fan in his right hand, Matsuke must be performing a scene from act 7, in which the leader of the forty-seven samurais carouses in pleasure quarters so as to divert attention from his revenge plan. Requiring an actor to alternately portray Yuranosuke as a reprobate and as a cunning warrior, this scene is especially challenging to perform