Young Woman Emboidering

Young Woman Emboidering, recorded through the ukiyo-e.org archive, depicts a beautiful woman absorbed in needlework — one of the quietest and most inward of bijin-ga motifs. Embroidery as a subject belongs to a long tradition of depicting women in concentration, paralleled in late Edo prints by women writing letters, applying makeup, or composing poetry. Tomioka Eisen's treatment fits within the Meiji turn toward the inwardness of domestic life that distinguishes much of his bijin-ga from the more theatrical conventions of Edo ukiyo-e. The image also signals the broader Meiji emphasis on female accomplishment in handicrafts, a subject heavily promoted in the magazines for which Eisen produced so many of his frontispieces.