The Third Segawa Sojuro and the Third Segawa Kikunojo as Lovers

Held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and dated circa 1779, this print depicts the third Segawa Sōjūrō and the third Segawa Kikunojō as lovers in a kabuki scene. Segawa Kikunojō III (1751–1810) was one of the most celebrated onnagata (female-role specialists) of the late eighteenth century and a major star of the An'ei-Tenmei stage. The pairing of two members of the Segawa acting family in romantic roles would have been a major draw at the Edo theaters, and the print belongs to the genre of kabuki commemorative imagery (yakusha-e) that fans collected to remember specific performances or to celebrate their favorite stars. Shunkō's handling shows the Katsukawa school's signature attention to individualized likeness: each actor's face is recognizably his own rather than a generic mask, and the contrasting masculine and feminine roles are signaled through costume, posture, and the precise relational geometry of the two figures. Romantic-pair (mitate or shinjū-mono) compositions were a recurring subgenre in actor prints, often connected to plays about famous lovers' suicides or thwarted romances. The Metropolitan's catalog entry preserves this as a record of one of the brief, intense pairings between two leading actors of the period.