Porcelain pillow

A still-life study of a jiki-makura, the ceramic head-rest used in Japan and East Asia and traditionally associated with summer cooling. The pillow's curved upper surface and rectangular base offer the kind of disciplined geometric subject Hiratsuka favored when working at small scale, allowing the design to rest on a single object rather than a populated scene. In monochrome woodcut, the porcelain's smoothness is conveyed by the absence of carved texture: large unbroken areas of black or white describe the glazed surface, while a few cut lines indicate decoration or the transition between body and base. The choice of an object more often encountered in Edo-period genre painting than in modern Japanese print reflects Hiratsuka's recurring interest in vernacular craft objects — temple ironwork, ritual implements, ceramic vessels — treated as compositional problems rather than as nostalgic subjects. The print belongs to the body of small-format still lifes that punctuate his catalogue between the larger architectural and landscape series.