Untitled (terashima-shimei)

The sixth untitled woodblock print by Terashima Shimei rounds out a significant group of works whose original titles are not preserved in current records. Taken together, these untitled prints represent an important portion of the artist's catalog and underscore how much of the shin-hanga era's output remains incompletely documented. Each print is a distinct composition, and the absence of a title does not diminish the care that went into its creation: from the initial design drawing, through the painstaking carving of multiple woodblocks, to the sequential printing of each color layer. Terashima's dedication to the bijin-ga subject ensured consistency across his output, while the infinite variations possible in a woman's pose, costume, and setting guaranteed that no two prints were identical. Future scholarship may yet recover the original titles for these works through auction records, publisher catalogs, or institutional holdings.