The actor Segawa Kikunojo V as Nuregami Chogoro

This oban-format color woodblock print of about 1830 by Utagawa Kunisada depicts the actor Segawa Kikunojo V in the role of Nuregami Chogoro, the famous sumo wrestler protagonist of the kabuki play "Futatsu Chocho Kuruwa Nikki" (Two Butterflies' Pleasure-Quarter Diary). Nuregami Chogoro is one of the most beloved sumo wrestler roles in kabuki: a strong, loyal, somewhat melancholic figure caught in conflicting obligations between his patron and his sumo brotherhood. The role demands tachiyaku (leading male) presence, and its assignment here to Segawa Kikunojo V (1802-1832) is striking, since Segawa Kikunojo V was primarily an onnagata (female-role specialist). Either the attribution is to a tachiyaku part Segawa undertook as a stretch role, or the original casting reflected a specific production's unconventional arrangement. Kunisada's design would show the wrestler in his stage costume, perhaps with the characteristic topknot wet from the play's name (nuregami means "wet hair"), conveyed through the careful Utagawa-school manner. The about-1830 dating places the print in Kunisada's mature Bunsei period, signed as Kunisada before the Toyokuni III phase began in 1844. The Art Institute of Chicago's holding sits within its larger record of Kunisada's prints featuring Segawa Kikunojo V, the leading onnagata of the late 1820s and early 1830s and a frequent Kunisada subject.