Young girl holding a snow rabbit

This print pictures a child cradling a yuki-usagi—the small rabbit-shaped mound of snow, traditionally fitted with leaves for ears and red nandina berries for eyes, that Japanese children build during winter. The composition centers on the figure rather than landscape, an unusual choice for Kasamatsu, whose roughly 280 designs are weighted heavily toward views of temples, harbors, and provincial scenery. Figure subjects of this kind connect more closely to his early training under Kaburagi Kiyokata, the [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) master in whose Asakusa atelier Kasamatsu studied alongside Kawase Hasui and Ito Shinsui. The [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) print of a child handling a fragile snow object foregrounds the workshop's technical strengths: [karazuri](/glossary/karazuri) (blind embossing) is often used to suggest the dimensional surface of snow without ink, while the child's kimono pattern would be cut on a separate block for crisp registration. The print sits at the meeting point of Kasamatsu's two formal lineages—Kiyokata's figure tradition and his own gravitation toward seasonal observation.