Woman holding puppet of actor Onoe Kikugoro III as Gokuin Sen'emon

This color woodblock print (nishiki-e) sheet, held by the Art Institute of Chicago (reference 29634, gift of Emily Crane Chadbourne), is a companion to Kuniyasu's woman-with-puppet-of-Ichikawa-Danjuro-VII sheet (1926.766/29631) and forms part of the same oban pentaptych dated by the museum to c. 1820s. The print depicts a woman holding a hand-puppet (ningyo) costumed and made up as the famous Edo kabuki actor Onoe Kikugoro III (1784-1849) in the role of Gokuin Sen'emon, one of the celebrated outlaw figures of the long-running "Five Karigane" cycle on which several sheets of the pentaptych are based. The format combines the elegant bijin-ga figure of an Edo beauty with the miniature theatrical portrait offered by the puppet, producing a witty mitate (visual parody) in which the world of high-end women's fashion is overlaid with the world of contemporary kabuki celebrity. Onoe Kikugoro III was one of the two greatest male-role specialists of the Bunsei-era Edo stage (alongside Ichikawa Danjuro VII), and his appearances in plays from the "Five Karigane" cycle were among the recurring highlights of the Edo theatrical calendar. The print is a representative example of Kuniyasu's distinctive contribution to the bijin-ga/yakusha-e crossover prints of the 1820s and a key document of the Edo print market's deep engagement with kabuki celebrity culture.