Katsukawa Syuntei The production date:1804-1818 This is one of the series that illustrated the portrait of popular actors, playing the characters of a story, “Forty-seven Ronin (Kanadehon Chushingura)”. The illustrated figures are Segawa Rokou IV takes part of Onase, and Segawa Senjo I takes part of Konami. In the story, these two characters are a mother and a daughter, and they are on the way to visit a son of Oboshi Yuranosuke (Parody of Oishi Kuranosuke), Oishi Rikiya, who is the fiancé of Konami. In the actual story, two characters never visit Enoshima Island, but in order to express the traveler’s sentiment, the scene at the Enoshima Island, a popular tourist site that many people visited as they traveled the Toukaidou Highway was chosen for the background.

Utagawa Chikashige The production date:1870 With a vivid vermilion background, the famous scene of “Hamamatsu-ya” is illustrated. This scene is well known with the famous speech of Benten-Kozou Kikunosuke when he exposes his true identity by taking off woman’s kimono and showing his tattoo at the shoulders. At the “Hamamatsu-ya” scene, a lady from a good family appears at a mercer Hamamatsu-ya to buy a wedding kimono but she was accused by a shop stuff by a shoplifting crime. The truth is the lady was a famous thief Benten-Kozou Kikunosuke pretends to be a lady by wearing beautiful woman’s kimono. He tries to extort money by insisting shop’s false accusation. Then, another thief Nihon Daemon, who is also pretends to be a samurai, visits the shop and exposes Benten-Kozou’s true identity. Then Benten Kozo who thinks there is no way to hide his identity, takes off the lady’s kimono and showing the tattoo on his shoulder. Then he states, “If you don’t know me, let me tell you who am I!”.

Ochiai Yoshiiku In this picture, surrounded by the three thieves, Benten Kozou, Nihon Daemon, and Nangou Rikimaru, Koubei, the owner of a mercer Hamamatsu-ya is illustrated. A box that contains 1,000-ryou (“ryou” is a monetary unit, and 1,000 ryou worth about 100 million-yen at that time) is put on the floor. One of the famous scene “Kuramae” is illustrated in this picture. Following the previous “Hamamatsu-ya” scene, after two thieves left the shop once, directed by Nihon Daemon, three thieves are trying to rob all the money from the shop. Wearing women’s glorious kimono loosely, holding a sake cup on his hand, Benten Kozou who is sitting in a casual manner was illustrated as a dandy and cool thief.

Utagawa Kunisada(ToyokuniⅢ) The production date:1852 The illustrated figure is Ichikawa Danjurou VIII, who was known as a handsome actor of the time. In this picture, he takes part of Matsuwakamaru, a character of a kabuki play. The framed title describes “Yoshida Bridge that was located between Totsuka and Fujisawa Stations”, but there is no bridge drawn at the background. Yoshida Bridge was a bridge that crossed over the Kashio River. This place was also famous for the fork that separates the Toukaidou Highway and the road to Kamakura. Yoshida Bridge was connected with Matsuwakamaru since he is from Yoshida family, an aristocrat family from Kyoto.

Torii Kiyomitsu The production date:1850 Banzuke or the ranking list was the printing media that was published for advertisement for the performance. Among the lists, ranking lists with the portraits, as this work were posted everywhere during November, when the Kaomise-kougyou performance that introduced all performers including actors, script writers, and members of the musical band of the kabuki company took place.　 The names of the actors are listed at the upper part of the picture. The character’s names that actors are especially good at were also introduced. At the lower part, actors who are performing particular characters from kabuki plays are also illustrated by a Torii school artist.

Kobayashi Kiyochika Kiyochika was active as an ukiyo-e artist from Meiji 9 (1876) to his death. Recognized as Hiroshige of the Meiji period, he developed his own painting technique, Kosen-ga (picture of ray of light) merging photographs, western style paintings and Japanese style paintings together.