Ichi, horo yoroi (No. 1, tipsy)

The girl has a glassy but direct gaze, with her hair and makeup carefully done. She holds a cigarette in her right hand, and her sleeveless polka dot dress reveals the voluptuous lines of her arms. This is a classic image of a modern girl from the late Taisho to the early Showa period in Japan. Unlike the relatively earlier ukiyo-e female images, she looks directly at the viewer, without any concealment or evasion, even with a hint of provocation. This confidence is closely related to the social atmosphere of the time. Japan, impacted by Western culture, began to embrace new things, and women started to step out of the household, no longer merely appendages to male relatives. Like the girl in this print, women of the time actively took on more roles, rather than just being objects of male gaze. Kobayakawa Kiyoshi perfectly interpreted a contemporary female image, which is the embodiment of an era's spirit. As he believed, what he needed to do was not just to depict customs, but to capture the essence of an era.
Kobayakawa Kiyoshi created a total of only 13 prints, 6 of which are from the same series as the present lot. This privately published series was limited to 100 prints per design.