Long Underrobe

A woman adjusts her nagajuban in the private act of dressing. The July 1929 date places this in Kotondo's most concentrated productive period, when he was issuing woodblock prints with a regularity that would not last. The underrobe subject — the garment between skin and outer kimono — offered Kotondo a vehicle for exploring partial undress and the intimate rituals of feminine self-preparation, subjects he approached with sensitivity and without sensationalism.