Dog, from the series "Twelve Signs of the Zodiac"

Dog from the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac is the inu (dog) plate from Seihō's zodiac album, here in a 15-1/4-by-21-inch impression catalogued by the Japanese Art Open Database. The composition shows a small puppy interacting with a straw sandal (waraji) — a charming domestic motif of the kind that Seihō favored throughout his career and that connects the zodiac album to the broader Maruyama-Shijō tradition of intimate animal observation. Both Ōkyo and Bairei before him had produced famous puppy studies in ink and color, and Seihō's contribution to the lineage treats the subject with the same combination of close observation and brush economy. The figure is rendered in fluid [sumi](/glossary/sumi) line and a restrained palette of warm earth tones, with the loose calligraphic brushwork of the brush original preserved through the woodblock. Each plate in the album bears Seihō's red name-seal as a chop mark in the corner, and the sheet is signed with the artist's full gō. The dog year (inu-doshi) recurs every twelve years in the East Asian zodiac, and impressions of this plate were often given as gifts in the artist's name to mark the corresponding new year. The Japanese Art Open Database notes the print is in excellent condition with minor wrinkling.