A Young Girl

A young girl—not yet old enough to be classed as a bijin but already being groomed into the conventions of feminine comportment—is shown in a formal or festive pose in this undated print. Shinsui occasionally extended his figure work beyond adult women to include children, and his treatment of young girls carries the same careful attention to dress and gesture that defines his portraits of adult beauties. The subject bridges his bijin-ga work and the broader tradition of genre images of children.