The Actors Iwai Hanshiro IV as Kuzunoha, Ichikawa Yaozo III as Yakanpei, and Ichikawa Ebizo IV as Abe no Doji, in the play "Ashiya Doman Ouchi Kagami," performed at the Nakamura Theater in the ninth month, 1784

This Torii Kiyonaga print in the Art Institute of Chicago records a ninth-month 1784 performance of Ashiya Doman Ouchi Kagami at the Nakamura Theater, showing Iwai Hanshiro IV as Kuzunoha, Ichikawa Yaozo III as Yakanpei, and Ichikawa Ebizo IV as Abe no Doji. The play, a kabuki adaptation of Takeda Izumo's puppet drama, dramatizes the legend of the white fox Kuzunoha, who in human form bears the future astrologer Abe no Seimei and is forced to abandon her child when her animal nature is revealed. Iwai Hanshiro IV, one of the leading onnagata of late-eighteenth-century Edo, takes the parting-fox role of Kuzunoha; the child Abe no Doji (later Seimei) and a supporting male character are played by Ebizo IV and Yaozo III. Kiyonaga, as head of the Torii school, observes the workshop's responsibility to produce actor portraits for the licensed Edo theaters, here rendering the three figures with the slender proportions and quiet contours that define his Tenmei-era yakusha-e. The composition concentrates on the emotional moment of separation rather than on theatrical bravura, characteristic of Kiyonaga's restrained reformulation of the Torii actor print. Costume patterning and family crests securely identify the actors and roles, while the calm grouping aligns the design with his Edo bijin-ga sensibility. As an Art Institute of Chicago–held record of a specific Nakamura-za performance, the print contributes to the documentary archive of Edo kabuki history that Kiyonaga, despite his bijin-ga fame, continued to produce throughout the 1780s.