Combing Her Hair

This print belongs to the kamisuki (hair-combing) subject that Kotondo returned to across multiple designs, a theme with deep roots in both [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) and the Meiji-era [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) tradition of his teacher Kaburagi Kiyokata. The composition likely presents the woman in a three-quarter or profile view, her arms raised and hair either partially unbound or mid-arrangement, capturing a transitional domestic moment. Kotondo's handling of hair in these prints is technically demanding: the carvers rendered individual strands with fine parallel cuts in the woodblock, and the printer applied ink in thin, graduated passes to convey the natural sheen of black hair. The woman's nape — frequently exposed during hair-dressing — is a focal point of refined eroticism in the bijin-ga tradition. The absence of landscape or interior background isolates the figure, concentrating the viewer's attention on gesture and surface.