The Actor Segawa Kikunojo III as the Female Fox-Fairy Otatsu-gitsune Disguised as Shizuka Gozen in the Play Kogane Saku Date no Okida, Performed at the Ichimura Theater in the Eleventh Month, 1792

In this Katsukawa Shunei print, the great onnagata Segawa Kikunojo III is shown in a transformation role: the female fox spirit Otatsu-gitsune disguised as Shizuka Gozen, the celebrated lover of Minamoto no Yoshitsune. Such kitsune roles were prized by female-role specialists for the opportunities they offered to shift between elegant courtly bearing and sudden flashes of supernatural animality, and Kikunojo III, the dominant onnagata of his generation, was a noted exponent of the part. Shunei renders the actor in flowing robes, the face given the specific likeness for which the Katsukawa school's contribution to Edo yakusha-e was famed, while subtle details of pose and ornament hint at the fox lurking beneath the human guise. The print documents a production of Kogane Saku Date no Okida staged at the Ichimura Theater in the eleventh month of 1792. Like all kabuki actor prints, it functioned as both advertising and memento, ensuring that a single performance could live on in households across Edo. As Katsukawa Shunsho's leading pupil, Shunei carried forward the school's signature emphasis on individualized actor portraiture and was by this date among the most sought-after designers of yakusha-e in the city. This impression in the Art Institute of Chicago belongs to a cluster of Shunei prints recording Segawa Kikunojo III in successive roles, allowing scholars to map the actor's repertoire through Shunei's eyes.