Actors Ichikawa Hakuen II as Sukeroku and Nakamura Utaemon III as a Vendor of White Sake

This 1830 diptych by Ryūsai Shigeharu, held by the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (accession 460875), depicts the actors Ichikawa Hakuen II as Sukeroku and Nakamura Utaemon III as a vendor of white sake in the kabuki classic Sukeroku yukari no Edo zakura (Sukeroku: Flower of Edo). Sukeroku is one of the Kabuki Jūhachiban (Eighteen Favorite Plays) of the Ichikawa family — the signature repertoire that defined the Ichikawa Danjūrō line — and its central character, the dashing chivalrous swaggerer Sukeroku, is a vehicle for tachiyaku star turn. The play's set-piece scene includes the appearance of a white-sake vendor whose true identity is revealed mid-act as Sukeroku's elder brother Soga no Jūrō in disguise, and Utaemon III's interpretation of this disguise role opposite Hakuen II's Sukeroku gives the 1830 Osaka production its specific documentary interest. The print is preserved as a color woodblock print on paper in the vertical ōban diptych format at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, accessioned through the William Sturgis Bigelow collection that forms the foundation of the museum's Osaka kamigata-e holdings.