The Actors Ichikawa Komazo II as Soga no Juro Sukenari (right), and Ichikawa Danjuro V as Soga no Goro Tokimune (left), in Komuso Attires, in the Play Sakaicho Soga Nendaiki, Performed at the Nakamura Theater in the First Month, 1771

Katsukawa Shunsho's yakusha-e diptych pairs Ichikawa Komazo II as Soga no Juro Sukenari on the right with Ichikawa Danjuro V as Soga no Goro Tokimune on the left, both in komuso attire, in 'Sakaicho Soga Nendaiki' at the Nakamura Theater in the first month of 1771. The Soga brothers, who undertook the medieval vendetta that became the foundation for the entire 'Soga mono' genre of Edo kabuki, were a perennial subject for the first-month theatrical season, with new variations on the basic vendetta plot appearing each year as a quasi-ritual New Year's offering. The choice to disguise them as komuso, the basket-hatted itinerant monks of the Fuke sect, draws on a beloved kabuki convention in which warrior incognito allowed actors to combine physical concealment with dramatic revelation. Shunsho's composition responds to the doubled identity by playing the deep woven hats and dark robes against the recognizable bodies of two of Edo's most charismatic stars. As an Edo ukiyo-e yakusha-e of the Katsukawa school, the print embodies the school's commitment to specific performances at specific theaters in specific months, and it also exemplifies the diptych format that Shunsho and his colleagues used to record paired roles. Held in the Art Institute of Chicago, the design is a vivid example of the way the Katsukawa school turned the Soga mono into an ongoing visual chronicle of Edo kabuki celebrity in the early 1770s.