A beautiful kuchi-e image of a beauty combing her hair by a pool of water. She wears a purple and white striped kimono over a pale pink robe with a blue and yellow obi.
A tree frames a view of blossoms and a stone lantern, with stepping stones leading back through the courtyard. A charming, quietly reflective design, beautifully drawn with soft colors and fine details. Artist - Kajita Hanko (1870 - 1917).
Kuchi-e (口絵) are frontispieces of books, especially with woodblock printing for Japanese romantic novels and literary journals published from the 1890s to the 1910s
They usually portrayed women and were bound into the spine of the book or inserted into literary magazines to give readers an idea of what the story was about. Most kuchi-e were intended for a female audience. The literary magazine Bungei Kurabu inserted more than 230 individuals from 1895 to 1914.
