Cat making up

This print belongs to Inagaki's central body of feline imagery, depicting a cat engaged in self-grooming — likely curled or arched as it cleans its fur. The pose, drawn from quiet domestic observation, exemplifies the intimate everyday subject matter that defined his cat series from the 1930s onward. Compositionally, Inagaki would have reduced the form to a flat black silhouette set against a single field of color, with the eyes rendered as luminous slits or pale circles cut into the ink. The keyblock carries the entire weight of the contour, while one or two additional blocks lay down the background and any selective accent. Wood grain may register through the dense black passages, contributing tactile texture to broad areas of pigment. Working in the sosaku-hanga manner — designed, carved, and printed by his own hand on washi — Inagaki produced cat studies of this kind throughout his mature career, and they remain the works most closely identified with his contribution to twentieth-century Japanese printmaking.