Beauty Sketching in a Field
- Date:
- 1903
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Format:
- Oban
- Publisher:
- Watanabe Shozaburo
$2,000–$20,000+. Beauty prints by this artist are particularly sought after. Good bijin-ga: $5,000–$12,000. Key value factors: Kiyokata's influence as a teacher and his connection to Edo culture make his work highly valued. Paintings far exceed print prices.
Dated 1903, Beauty Sketching in a Field shows a young woman outdoors engaged in drawing or painting, a subject that combines Kaburaki's specialization in [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) with a landscape setting and a theme of artistic practice. The woman's activity marks her as educated and culturally refined, qualities that Meiji-era reformers encouraged in women as part of Japan's modernization program. Kaburaki depicts her in a natural setting rather than the interior rooms that more commonly frame bijin subjects, opening the composition to include fields, sky, and vegetation alongside the figure. The 1903 date places this early in Kaburaki's career, when the Meiji period was still transforming Japanese society and the image of a woman sketching outdoors carried progressive overtones. The [oban](/glossary/oban) woodblock format renders both figure and landscape with equal attention.
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Beauty Sketching in a Field was created by Kaburaki Kiyokata (鏑木清方) in 1903.
Beauty Sketching in a Field was published by Watanabe Shozaburo (1903).
Beauty Sketching in a Field depicts landscapes and bijin-ga.
