Girl Holding a snow hare

This print depicts a young girl cradling a small hare fashioned from snow, a seasonal motif rooted in Japanese winter play traditions where children sculpted yuki-usagi using bamboo leaves for ears and nandina berries for eyes. Settai's treatment likely emphasizes the quiet stillness of a winter moment, with the figure rendered in his characteristic spare linework derived from his nihonga training and his deep study of Edo-period [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) masters such as Suzuki Harunobu. The composition probably uses the unprinted [washi](/glossary/washi) to suggest snow, a restraint typical of Settai's approach in which negative space carries as much weight as the printed areas. Subtle [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations would model the kimono fabric without disrupting the flat, decorative surface. Within Settai's oeuvre, child subjects appear less frequently than his [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga), but they share the same hushed, melancholic atmosphere that distinguishes his work from the more sentimental [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) depictions of children produced in the same decades.