CC0 · no rights reserved
Onoe Matsusuke I as Ebisu, from The Stand-In Seven Gods of Good Fortune
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
This print is from a group in which famous Kabuki theater actors who never performed together stand in for the Seven Gods of Good Fortune. Images of the Seven Gods symbolize hope for fortune in the coming year, and the set may have been made for the New Year of 1780. Here, Onoe Matsusuke I poses beneath curtains at the entrance to a place of business. They read, “House of Ebisu.” Ebisu is the god of fishermen, which may account for the wave imagery on the actor’s inner robe.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineOnoe Matsusuke I as Ebisu, from The Stand-In Seven Gods of Good Fortune (見立七福神の内 「蛭子屋」初代尾上菊五郎), c. 1780. Katsukawa Shunshō (Japanese, 1726–1792). Color woodblock print; sheet: 31.5 x 14 cm (12 3/8 x 5 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift from J. H. Wade, 1921.1280
Similar works
Takinoya: Ichikawa Monnosuke II as Soga no Juro, from the series "Portraits of Actors on Stage (Yakusha butai no sugata-e)"
Actor portrait of Sawamura Sojuro III in the role of Kakogawa Honzo
Segawa Michinosuke Wearing a Padded Plaid Robe
Ichikawa Monnosuke II as a Lord
Actor Portrait with Poem
Sawamura Sojuro III as Enya Hangan in Kanadehon Chushingura