Beauty of the Enpo Period

The first in a group of prints titled Beauty of the Enpo Period, this bijin-ga presents a woman costumed in the fashion of the Enpo era (1673–1681), the mid-Edo period preceding the florescence of Genroku culture. Kiyochika brings a Meiji-era printmaker's sensibility to the reconstruction, deploying the full polychrome range of late nineteenth-century woodblock technique to evoke an earlier, less technically elaborate moment in print history. The figure's kimono likely features textile patterns consistent with known Enpo-period garments, and her hairstyle would conform to period documentation. This type of retrospective bijin series was well established in Meiji publishing, connecting contemporary audiences to the idealized feminine images of their cultural past through the accessible format of the oban-sized woodblock print.