The actors Onoe Kikugoro III (R) as Nagoya Sanza and Iwai Kumesaburo II (L) as the courtesan Katsuragi in the play "Oichiza Soga no Shimadai," performed at the Kawarazaki Theater in the first month, 1827

This 1827 woodblock print by Utagawa Kunisada documents a specific performance at Edo's Kawarazaki Theater in the first month of 1827, in which Onoe Kikugorō III played the samurai Nagoya Sanza and Iwai Kumesaburō II played the Yoshiwara courtesan Katsuragi in the New Year play 'Oichiza Soga no Shimadai.' The pairing is one of the most famous in the kabuki repertoire: Nagoya Sanza is the dashing lover whose rivalry with another samurai, Fuwa Banzaemon, supplies one of the great visual confrontations of the Edo stage, and the courtesan Katsuragi is bound up with that rivalry. Both actors were stars of the 1820s Edo theatre, and the prints commemorating their performance are some of the most informative records of how a contemporary audience saw them. Kunisada was already the leading designer of yakusha-e in his generation, working as a senior pupil of Utagawa Toyokuni I, and the print belongs squarely to the commercial culture of Edo ukiyo-e in which an actor print could be on sale within weeks of a play's first night. The composition pairs the two figures across two sheets, with Onoe Kikugorō III on the right in a strong masculine posture and Iwai Kumesaburō II on the left in courtesan robes, the obi tied at the front and a tall coiffure. Costume and crest identify the actors, and the strong black contour, mineral red and indigo register place the print in his mid-1820s manner. The Art Institute of Chicago holds the impression and supplies the play title, theatre, month and year.