The Actors Yamashita Kinsaku II and Segawa Kikunojo II

A hosoban benizuri-e by Torii Kiyohiro of around 1757 depicting the actors Yamashita Kinsaku II and Segawa Kikunojo II in a paired-figure composition - a doubled portrait of two of the leading onnagata (female-role specialists) of mid-eighteenth-century Edo kabuki on a single narrow sheet. Segawa Kikunojo II had become by the late 1750s the most celebrated onnagata of Edo, taking over from his father Segawa Kikunojo I as the leading female-role specialist of the Ichimura-za and the Nakamura-za. Yamashita Kinsaku II was a contemporary onnagata of similar standing, performing female roles across multiple Edo theatres. The pairing of two senior onnagata in a single print was an unusual composition for the Torii school, whose default yakusha-e format placed a single actor on the narrow hosoban sheet. The double-figure composition required Kiyohiro to interlock the two standing figures within the constrained vertical proportions of the format, producing a paired portrait that allowed Edo theatre-goers to compare the two leading female-role specialists side by side. The benizuri-e palette of pink and green dates the print to the period immediately before the introduction of full-colour nishiki-e printing in the mid-1760s. Held by the Art Institute of Chicago.