White Fox girls

The title White Fox girls invokes the kitsune, the fox spirit central to Japanese folklore, paired here with the figure of girls — suggesting either a literal scene of children with fox companions or, more likely, kitsune in their shape-shifted human form, traditionally represented as young women. Okamoto would render this subject through mokuhanga's precise color separations, with the white fur of the foxes likely achieved through reserved areas of unprinted [washi](/glossary/washi) paper bordered by carefully carved keyblock outlines. The composition probably balances figurative description with stylized decorative pattern, drawing on the long tradition of supernatural imagery in Japanese prints, from Edo-period ghost stories to Meiji-era illustrated folktales. This subject represents an expansion of Okamoto's naturalist focus into folklore and imagination, where the white fox — associated with the deity Inari — carries deep cultural and spiritual resonance in Japanese tradition.