The Actor Segawa Tomisaburo II as the Otomos' Maid Wakakusa, Actually Prince Korehito

This 1794 woodblock by Toshusai Sharaku, in the Art Institute of Chicago, shows the onnagata Segawa Tomisaburo II as the Otomo household's maid Wakakusa, who is in fact Prince Korehito in disguise. The convention of nested identities, a male prince passing as a young female servant in a household intrigue, was a staple of late-Edo kabuki, and Sharaku's okubi-e for Tsutaya Juzaburo regularly took up exactly these complicated role-types.

The portrait reads as a quiet study in stage femininity sustained under tension. Tomisaburo II is drawn with the typical onnagata signs - high-set painted brows, a small carefully shaped mouth, smooth white-painted skin - but Sharaku draws the underlying male anatomy with characteristic restraint, allowing the neck and jaw their natural weight rather than reducing them to a stylized oval. The head tilts slightly forward, the gaze cast down and away, conveying a young woman trying to remain unnoticed; for viewers attentive to the role, the same composition reads as a prince trying to remain unrecognized.