The Actor Segawa Kichiji Performing at Age Eight

A young Kabuki actor in a robe patterned with chrysanthemums and Chinese-style treasures dances with two lion puppets on his hands—one with a red face and one with a long pale mane. The actor seems to have jumped off a footed stand holding a large display of peonies. Butterflies flit overhead. This dance is clearly a Shakkyō mono—a category of lion dances derived from the Noh play Shakkyō (Stone Bridge), in which a Buddhist priest meets a boy woodcutter while on a pilgrimage near a stone bridge in China. The child later reappears as a lion (or two lions) to perform an auspicious dance amid the peonies. Such dances were frequently performed on the Kabuki stage in the eighteenth century.
The inscription and the actors’ crests—roundels with bundled cotton rovings—tell us that this is the legendary actor Segawa Kichiji, better known by his later name Kikunojō II (1741–1773). This print depicts his stage debut in the dance Aki no chō katami no tsubasa, performed as part of the program Kanadehon shijūshichi ji at the Nakamura Theater in Edo in the ninth month of 1750. This was a memorial performance on the first anniversary of the death of his adpoted father Segawa Kikunojō I. At this time, Kichiji would have been ten by the traditional method of calculating age, despite the fact that the inscription on this print records him as eight years old. The pinwheels at his feet—likely used as props in the dance—also emphasize his youth.
The predominance of red (beni) and the fact that its color is printed instead of being hand applied place this print into the category of benizuri-e.