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

Published in 1827 and held by the Art Institute of Chicago, this Utagawa Toyokuni print documents a specific production at the Kawarazaki Theater in Edo, with Onoe Kikugoro III on the right as the dashing Nagoya Sanza and Iwai Kumesaburo II on the left as the courtesan Katsuragi. The play, Oichiza Soga no Shimadai, was part of the New Year cycle of Soga-themed productions that anchored each kabuki season. Edo [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) [yakusha-e](/glossary/yakusha-e) of this kind functioned as immediate publicity, and Toyokuni was the central designer responsible for translating such opening-month performances into portable visual form. The composition pairs the two figures in a balanced arrangement that emphasizes the contrast between the male role and the courtesan, with Toyokuni handling each costume's pattern and color in a way that signals status, profession, and emotional register without resorting to surrounding stage scenery. Onoe Kikugoro III's facial features are rendered with the careful nigao-e treatment that allowed contemporary audiences to confirm the actor's identity at a glance, and the same is true for Iwai Kumesaburo II. The cartouche provides explicit information about the play, theater, and month, making the sheet a tightly anchored historical document of a single production. Such fully captioned theatrical prints offer modern scholars an unusually precise sense of how kabuki news flowed through late Edo society.