Fashionable Courageous Flowers

Two half-shaven, topknotted men in half-length portrait are set against a vivid red ground filled with white cherry blossoms and dark branches; each wears a bold geometric-patterned outer robe (checkered and key-fret designs) over an inner kimono with floral and chrysanthemum motifs in blue, pink, and white. The left figure tilts his head and presses a striped cloth to his cheek with a scowling expression, while the right figure, seated beside a grey rock, bites down on a long-stemmed pipe with a similarly stern glare. Vertical cartouches of text appear at the upper right and center; the print is a woodblock (nishiki-e) diptych by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi titled "Fashionable Courageous Flowers," 1860, in ink and color on paper.