The actor Segawa Kikunojo III in a female role, looking in a mirror

This print features Segawa Kikunojō III, one of the most celebrated onnagata actors of the Edo period. Here his female character strikes an elegant pose, gazing down at a hand mirror on a lacquered dressing case, with her folded arms displaying to advantage the dramatic pattern of “eightfold” plank bridges (yatsuhashi) and irises on the long sleeves of her furisode. In gestures familiar from other onnagata portraits by Shunsō, her head is twisted to one side to reveal the nape of her neck, and one delicate, feminine hand rests on her outstretched arm. The colors are unusually well preserved, with lush purple and pink, touches of blue in the crest and hems, and oxidized orange in the bridge planks and mirror stand. Like the previous example, this print is signed in the distinctive manner Shunshō used around 1772–1774. The first character, shun, has an extended righthand stroke, and the third character, read ga (painted by), has the appearance of one square within another.