The Actors Kasaya Matakuro II as Hagun Taro (right), Ichikawa Monnosuke II as Izutsu no Suke Narihira (center), and Nakamura Nakazo I as Kose no Kanaoka Disguised as Sogoro the Charcoal Maker, in the Play Kuni no Hana Ono no Itsumoji, Performed at the Nakamura Theater in the Eleventh Month, 1771

This Katsukawa Shunsho triptych is held in the Art Institute of Chicago and pairs three of the leading actors of the early 1770s in the eleventh-month 1771 Nakamura Theater staging of Kuni no Hana Ono no Itsumoji. Kasaya Matakuro II appears at right as Hagun Taro, Ichikawa Monnosuke II at center as Izutsu no Suke Narihira, and Nakamura Nakazo I at left as the painter Kose no Kanaoka disguised as Sogoro the charcoal maker. The play layers Heian historical figures, Ariwara no Narihira and Kose no Kanaoka, with the costume disguises of kabuki convention, and Shunsho's triptych captures the moment when the three leading characters share the stage in their assembled roles. As a kaomise production, the eleventh-month show was the year's most important showcase, and prints commissioned for the season carried particular promotional and commemorative weight. Shunsho's Katsukawa school design distributes the figures across three sheets but maintains compositional unity through gesture and gaze, the actors' eyes turned toward one another within the larger horizontal frame. The print represents Edo ukiyo-e yakusha-e at full sophistication, the genre by 1771 having absorbed Shunsho's individuating innovations and become the standard manner of kabuki representation. The image is a key example of the multi-figure compositions through which Shunsho extended the Katsukawa school's reach beyond single-actor portraits.