The Actors Sanogawa Ichimatsu (right), Nakamura Kiyosaburo (center right), Sanogawa Senzo (center left), and Nakamura Kumetaro (left)

This Art Institute of Chicago color woodblock print in oban format and benizuri-e classification, dated to around 1750, depicts a quartet of kabuki actors: Sanogawa Ichimatsu on the right, Nakamura Kiyosaburo on the center right, Sanogawa Senzo on the center left, and Nakamura Kumetaro on the left. The four-figure composition, organized horizontally across the oban sheet, allowed Ishikawa Toyonobu to stage one of the great themes of Edo theater culture: the kabuki troupe as ensemble, with each actor's individual celebrity inflected by the larger company within which he performed. The grouping is unusual in Toyonobu's oeuvre, where two-figure pairings and triptychs predominate, and it suggests a particular performance, mitate, or troupe lineage that the original viewer would have decoded. Benizuri-e classification confirms the use of two or three printed color blocks supplying rose pink and grass green over the black-line printing, the new technique Toyonobu was among the first to popularize. The Art Institute print is a key document of mid-Edo group actor portraiture and of Toyonobu's interest in extending the actor portrait beyond the standard solo or paired format.