Ball-tipped hairpin

The subject is a tama-kanzashi — a Japanese hair ornament terminating in a decorative ball, typically of coral, jade, lacquered wood, or glass — long associated with the formal hair arrangements of women in the Edo and early modern periods. A print devoted to a single hairpin departs from the usual [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) convention in which the ornament appears as one detail among many on a depicted figure; isolating the object here suggests a still-life or design-study orientation. Mokuhanga still lifes of this kind rely on close observation and on flat, even color fields to render the lacquered or polished surfaces of the ornament, often with the ball reserved as a single pigment block printed against a neutral or tonally graded ground. The choice of a small, intimate object as subject aligns with [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) and sōsaku-hanga interest in detail studies and with the broader twentieth-century interest in Japanese material culture as an end in itself rather than as a costume accessory.