Two Japanese women - Lip rouge

The application of beni — red lip rouge derived historically from safflower — is a recurring [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) motif, treated by Utamaro in his mirror prints of the 1790s and revived by [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) artists including Itō Shinsui and Hashiguchi Goyō. The subject of a woman absorbed in the small ritual of applying makeup combines visual delicacy with psychological introspection, the figure's gaze directed inward or toward a hand-mirror. In a two-figure composition, the secondary woman may attend the dressing, hold the mirror, or simply share the moment, transforming a private act into an intimate exchange. Mokuhanga registers the scene through fine keyblock linework for the lips and eyebrows, with restrained colour across the kimono so as not to compete with the focal accent of the rouge itself. The print places Shimura within a bijin-ga lineage of nearly two centuries while expressing the postwar period's quieter reading of the subject.