Plaything (Tawamure)

Published in 1936, this color woodblock print bears the Japanese title "Tawamure," suggesting playful amusement or dalliance. A woman handles a small object with delicate attention, her posture relaxed and her expression engaged. Ishikawa Toraji builds the scene around this interaction between figure and plaything, using the color printing process to create subtle tonal variations in the woman's skin and garments. The title's double meaning, encompassing both innocent play and flirtation, adds an undertone of complexity to what appears on the surface as a simple domestic scene, a quality Toraji cultivated throughout his bijin-ga work.