The actor Segawa Kikunojo and a young woman kicking a ball

Utagawa Toyokuni I designed this lively double-figure composition showing the kabuki star Segawa Kikunojo and a young woman engaged in the courtly game of kemari, ball-kicking. Although [yakusha-e](/glossary/yakusha-e) tradition often confines actors to dramatic stage roles, here Toyokuni places the celebrated onnagata in a more genre-like scene, blurring the boundary between the world of the theater and the world of urban leisure that defined Edo [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e). The light, almost playful interaction between the two figures emphasizes the elegance of Kikunojo's bearing while showcasing Toyokuni's eye for textile pattern, fan-shapes, and the dynamic curve of bodies in motion. Held by the Art Institute of Chicago, the impression preserves the strong contours and balanced palette that helped Toyokuni I rise to dominate the Edo print market in the 1790s. The print can be read as both celebrity portrait and seasonal genre scene, two of the most marketable categories in late-eighteenth-century woodblock publishing. Segawa Kikunojo enjoyed an enormous following as a female-role specialist, and Toyokuni's design feeds the public hunger to see the actor in attractive, slightly daydreamed settings beyond the stage. As an early career example of Utagawa Toyokuni's mature manner, the sheet helps explain how he expanded the conventions of yakusha-e to embrace softer, more anecdotal compositions that would influence the Utagawa school for the rest of the Edo period.