Unknown, cat and kittens

Depicting an adult cat with her offspring, this print extends Sekino's recurring engagement with feline subjects across multiple phases of his career. The composition likely arranges the figures in a grouped arrangement conveying maternal proximity—the adult's body arching around or sheltering the smaller forms of the kittens. Sekino paid careful attention to the physical and behavioral differences between adult cats and young ones: the rounder proportions of kittens, their slightly uncertain postures, rendered through carved lines that differentiate the softer fur of juveniles from the sleeker coat of the adult. The animal subject had a long history in Japanese printmaking, from Hiroshige's kacho-e to Kawanabe Kyosai's more humorous treatments; Sekino approached these subjects with observational directness, suppressing anecdote in favor of formal attentiveness to the animals themselves.