Segawa Rokō (Segawa Kikunojō III)

This 1801 Osaka kamigata-e [yakusha-e](/glossary/yakusha-e) by Shōkōsai Hanbei, preserved in the Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum at Waseda University (accession 016-0777), depicts the actor Segawa Roko (Segawa Kikunojō III in his Roko stage name) during his touring residence in the Kamigata region. The Waseda catalog records that the actor had been renamed Roko in the first year of the Kyōwa era and remained in the Kamigata region from the second year's eleventh month through the autumn of the first year of the Bunka era, anchoring the print to a precisely documented Osaka-Kyoto theatrical engagement of one of the most celebrated Edo onnagata of the late eighteenth century. Segawa Kikunojō III had risen to onnagata stardom in Edo during the 1770s and 1780s, and his decision to spend an extended residency in Kamigata around 1801-1804 brought the leading Edo female-role tradition into direct contact with the Osaka onnagata audience — a cross-regional moment Shōkōsai's portrait captures with the careful inscription practice that defined his documentary mission. The composition is characteristic of his mature template: a half-length view of the actor in costume, careful inscription of the actor's name, restrained kamigata color treatment, and the artist's signature alongside the publisher's mark. The print is preserved in the Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum at Waseda University and is mirrored digitally at data.[ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e).org/waseda/. The Waseda 016 series, of which this is one example, is one of the principal Japanese institutional concentrations of Shōkōsai's single-sheet prints and gives modern researchers a coherent visual record of the artist's coverage of touring Edo actors during their Kamigata engagements.