Maiko

This Maiko portrait is one of several Sekino made of Kyoto's apprentice geisha, a subject he returned to over many years and treated as a study in costume, posture, and individual physiognomy. The print likely shows the figure in a half- or three-quarter-length view, with the white-painted face, lower-lip rouge, and elaborate hairpins establishing her status within the maiko apprenticeship system. Sekino's print idiom relies on a strong key-block defining the contour and facial features, overprinted with broad areas of saturated color in the kimono and selective [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations across the ground or hair. Carved and printed by the artist himself in the [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) manner, the impression registers small irregularities — the grain of the cherry block, the pressure of the [baren](/glossary/baren) — that distinguish his prints from the smoother surfaces of commercial [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) and align them with the movement's emphasis on the artist's hand.