Woman standing before a mirror

A woman stands before a mirror in this 1915 oban woodblock print, a subject that doubles the figure within the composition: the viewer sees both the woman from behind and her reflected face in the mirror's surface. This doubling creates a psychological complexity rare in single-figure prints, as the woman's private act of self-examination becomes visible to an unseen observer. Fritz Capelari may have drawn on the European tradition of the boudoir scene, where mirrors serve as devices for revealing what would otherwise be hidden, while also engaging with the long Japanese tradition of mirror imagery in bijin-ga prints. The woodblock medium handles the mirror's reflective surface through subtle tonal shifts that distinguish the reflected image from the physical figure. The contrast between the woman's solid, three-dimensional body and her flat, reversed reflection creates visual tension.