The Actors Nakamura Takesaburo as Shikishi Naishinno and Tsuruya Nanboku as Gengoro in the play "Tategami Teika Kazura," performed at the Ichimura Theater in the eleventh month, 1719

Companion to the Fujimura Handayu II print from the same 1719 Ichimura Theater production, this Art Institute of Chicago urushi-e shows the actors Nakamura Takesaburo as Shikishi Naishinno and Tsuruya Nanboku as Gengoro in Tategami Teika Kazura. The print pairs the two performers in a single [hosoban](/glossary/hosoban), demonstrating the early eighteenth-century convention of double-portrait [yakusha-e](/glossary/yakusha-e) that Toshinobu helped develop alongside his teacher Masanobu. Shikishi Naishinno was a historical figure, a princess and waka poet of the late Heian period whose figure reappeared frequently in kabuki adapted from earlier literature, while Gengoro is one of the play's male roles. The deep lacquered urushi blacks and hand-applied pigments are characteristic of the Okumura studio's commercial output at its most ambitious. Because the date and theater are specified by inscription, the print serves scholars as primary evidence for the casting and visual presentation of this otherwise undocumented Kyoho-era production. The play and production references inscribed on the sheet preserve a precise moment of Edo theatrical history, and the print stands among the surviving documents by which scholars reconstruct the casting, costuming, and visual culture of early-eighteenth-century kabuki at the Ichimura and Nakamura theaters during the Kyoho and Genbun eras. The impression is preserved in good condition and contributes to the institutional record of Toshinobu's signed and dated yakusha-e and [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) output in the early Edo [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) tradition.