Leech gatherers

An unusual genre subject in Hiratsuka's catalogue, this print depicts workers harvesting medicinal leeches — a rural occupation associated with shallow rice paddies and marshlands, where leeches were collected for use in traditional medicine. The composition likely shows figures bent over standing water, their forms reduced to bold black silhouettes against the white of the paper, with the geometry of paddy edges and reflections providing structure. Hiratsuka's interest in laboring figures aligns with the broader [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) sympathy for ordinary working life, an inheritance from Yamamoto Kanae's 1904 'Fisherman,' which is conventionally treated as the movement's founding work. By choosing a humble, even uncomfortable subject like leech gathering rather than picturesque farmwork, Hiratsuka extends that lineage with characteristic seriousness. The carving would emphasize body posture and gesture over facial detail, treating the workers as compositional volumes within the landscape rather than as individuated portraits — consistent with his preference for monumental simplification across both architectural and figural prints.