The Actors Onoe Tamizo I as Nishikigi (?) or Otae (?) (right), Ichikawa Danjuro V as Miura Heidayu Kunitae (?) (center), and Osagawa Tsuneyo II as Oyuki (?) (left), in the Play Date Nishiki Tsui no Yumitori (?), Performed at the Morita Theater (?) in the Eleventh Month, 1778 (?)

Documented through ukiyo-e.org from the Art Institute of Chicago, this Katsukawa Shunsho yakusha-e triptych shows Onoe Tamizo I as Nishikigi or Otae (right), Ichikawa Danjuro V as Miura Heidayu Kunitae (center), and Osagawa Tsuneyo II as Oyuki (left) in the play Date Nishiki Tsui no Yumitori, probably performed at the Morita Theater in the Eleventh Month, 1778. The question marks throughout the cataloguing reflect scholarly caution about play title, role identification, and venue, but the actor names and the late-1770s eleventh-month kaomise context are reasonably secure. Shunsho, founder of the Katsukawa school and the dominant practitioner of yakusha-e in Edo ukiyo-e, composes the triptych as a continuous frieze, the three figures arranged so that Danjuro V's tachiyaku presence at center anchors two onnagata flanking him. Each actor is rendered with individuated facial features, in keeping with the Katsukawa school's defining innovation: the substitution of recognizable likeness for the generic Torii-style type. Patterned robes, mon, and the slight overlap of sleeves bind the three sheets into a single composition while preserving each actor's autonomy. Kaomise triptychs of this kind functioned as theater advertisements, fan tributes, and durable Edo ukiyo-e collectibles, and they show how Shunsho extended single-figure portraiture into the more ambitious multi-sheet format the Edo market increasingly demanded.