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Katsukawa Shunshō

Onoe Matsusuke I as Ebisu, from The Stand-In Seven Gods of Good Fortune

c. 1780
color woodblock print

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FROM THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART’S CATALOG

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.

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