One of thirty-six prints making up the Watanabe-published series Creative Print Collection of Portraits by Shunsen* (1925-1929).  This print is the series installment no. 15.  Along with the print Morita Kanya XIII As Genta Kagesue, one of two prints from this series in this collection.  The character 壽 kotobuki (long life) is written on the actor's fan and refers to the medicine he is peddling.

Source: Dramatic Impressions: Japanese Theatre Prints from the Gilbert Luber Collection, Chance, Frank L. & Davis, Julie Nelson, University of Pennsylvania Press, 200, p. 41
Ichikawa Sanshō V* appears full-figure, early in his career, in a pose established long before for the role of the fast-talking peddler.  Bearing on his back a pack full of moxa – Japanese mogusa, a medicine to be burned, like incense, on the skin of the patient – Sanshō faces the audience and holds out a sample as he delivers a long sales pitch filled with puns, jokes, and other remarks.  The print and the pose reflect the long tradition of kabuki: this pose was struck, after all, in the first performance of the role, in 1716, by the second Danjūrō (1688–1758), and had since been pictured repeatedly in prints.  

Actor in over coast of grey-blue with light blue lining, red border on cord, and brown-yellow Chinese “cash” motifs.  Red-brown scarf with a red lining and with pattern of rice paper strips called gohei, and rope in red, green, yellow and white; cap, leggings and armlets, grey-blue; socks, blue-purple shaded to blue; light green sandals with grayed yellow straps.  On fan, blue character “Kotobuki” (longevity); red-orange box; peddler’s cases, red and orange with blue and white wave motif and grayed yellow crest; lower case, strapped with grayed yellow.  Background is light gray. 

Signed “Shunsen ga” (Shunsen drawing); also his seal.  Imprint of Watanabe, publisher. Margin:“Natori”, artist’s stamp of approval.  Edition, 150 impressions; issued in 1926.  14 11/16” x 10 1/16”.

The Actor in the Print: Ichikawa Sanshō V  (posthumously Ichikawa Danjūrō X) (1882–1956)

Source: Dramatic Impressions: Japanese Theatre Prints from the Gilbert Luber Collection, Chance, Frank L. & Davis, Julie Nelson, University of Pennsylvania Press, 200, p. 41.

Ichikawa Sanshō V*, is arguably the most important actor in the rough aragoto tradition.  Sanshō was an unusual figure in modern kabuki, adopted from a non-acting family when he married the daughter of Ichikawa Danjūrō IX (1838 – 1903), inheritor of the most important lineage of kabuki actors.  On the death of his father-in-law, Sanshō began to appear onstage, though he never took the Danjūrō stage name. 

He died the 1st of February 1956. He posthumously received the name of Ichikawa Danjūrō X in 1962. 

* the text in Dramatic Impressions reads Ichikawa Sanshō X which is in error.

The Play in the Print: Uirōuri 外郎売 

Source: Kabuki 21 website  http://www.kabuki21.com/uiro_uri.php 
"Uirō Uri" was not at the beginning a drama but a short scene, which was staged for the first time in January 1718 at the Moritaza, within Chikamatsu Genzaburō's new year drama "Wakamidori Ikioi Soga". It starred Ichikawa Danjūrō II in the role of a moxa peddler, in reality Soga Gorō Tokimune in disguise. 

It was staged for the first time as an independent drama, which was titled "Uirō", in September 1922 at the Imperial Theater, starring Ichikawa Sanshō V in the role of Soga Gorō Tokimune. 

This is one of many plays based on the revenge by the Soga brothers on Kudō Saemon Suketsune, the villain who was responsible for the murder of their father. In this particular play, this dramatic fight is transformed into light fantasy by showing Soga Gorō Tokimune disguised as Toraya Tōkichi, a peddler from Odawara, who sells uirō, a moxa medicine that makes it possible to speak quickly and elegantly. He arrives at the pleasure quarter of Ōiso, at the foot of Mount Fuji, where he meets a party led by Kudō Saemon Suketsune. This is a great opportunity for Gorō to confront, with his brother Soga Jūrō Sukenari, the arch enemy of his clan. The highlight of the play is a three-minute-long virtuoso speech, full of puns and tongue twisters, many of them which derive from children’s songs and rhymes.