Actors Nakamura Shikan as Fukuoka Mitsugi and Nakamura Kashichi as Courtesan Oshika

This 1835 Victoria and Albert Museum (https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O407234) double portrait by Shunbaisai Hokuei shows Nakamura Shikan II as Fukuoka Mitsugi paired with Nakamura Kashichi as the courtesan Oshika, the two central figures of Ise ondo koi no netaba (The Ise Dances and Loving Sharp Edges), one of the most enduring sewamono in the kabuki repertoire. The play, set in the Aburaya brothel of the Ise pilgrim quarter, tells the story of Mitsugi, a young man of samurai background who has discovered a plot against his lord and must navigate a complex social web at the brothel while protecting his secret, with the courtesan Okon (here apparently performing under the name Oshika in this production) as his ally and lover. The climactic scene, in which Mitsugi is goaded by his rival into a frenzied sword attack on the assembled company of the Aburaya, was one of the great violent set-pieces of the kabuki stage. Hokuei portrays Shikan II with the suppressed intensity appropriate to Mitsugi's role as a man holding back a secret motive, and Kashichi as the elegant teahouse courtesan whose costume conventions Hokuei renders with characteristic care. Nakamura Shikan II (later Nakamura Utaemon IV) was rising to prominence in the mid-1830s, and the print documents one of his significant 1835 Kamigata appearances. The Victoria and Albert impression preserves the careful registration required for a two-figure composition with distinct costume palettes against a unified background, exemplifying Hokuei's premium-grade Osaka [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) workshop production. As an early portrait of the future Utaemon IV in a leading sewamono role, the print is particularly valuable to scholars tracing the actor's pre-succession development, and it stands within the V&A's substantial mid-1830s Hokuei holdings as a key document of the Shikan II phase of the actor's career.