Woman Combing Her Hair

Though the Japanese color woodblock print had been brought to artistic heights during the Edo Period (1615–1868) by such artists as Hiroshige, Harunobu, and Hokusai, after the mid-19th century the quality of this art form generally declined. By the early decades of the 20th century, however, a new generation of Japanese artists revived the color woodblock print.

A woman dressing or grooming after a bath was a popular subject with many of these “new print” movement (shin hanga) artists. The subject linked the prints to the erotic undertones of Edo images of courtesans. Borrowing from Western artistic practices, Hashiguchi Goyō and other shin hanga artists produced “pictures of beautiful women” (bijin-ga) by sketching models from life. Goyō used the features of model Kodaira Tomi for this print, though in simplified, idealized form.