The Actors Anegawa Shinshiro I and Segawa Kikunojo I

A paired-figure hosoban urushi-e by Torii Kiyoshige showing the Edo actors Anegawa Shinshiro I and Segawa Kikunojo I in a stage moment of around 1733. Segawa Kikunojo I, founder of the Segawa lineage of onnagata (female-role specialists), was one of the most celebrated female-role actors of the Edo stage in the 1720s and 1730s, and his career across the Nakamura-za, Ichimura-za, and Morita-za is preserved in Torii-school yakusha-e of the period in some of the most thorough early documentation of any Edo female-role actor. Anegawa Shinshiro I, of the second-tier Anegawa acting house, supplied supporting roles alongside the leading lineages of the Edo stage. The Torii workshop's documentary practice of naming actor and role makes prints of this kind invaluable theatrical records, allowing modern scholars to reconstruct the casting of specific Edo kabuki seasons. The hand-coloured urushi-e palette and narrow hosoban sheet are entirely characteristic of Kiyoshige's early-career production. Held at the Art Institute of Chicago.