Lithograph by Uemura Shoen: A Long Night

Eyes lowered, hair stacked with combs and pins, she has the whole night and seems to know it.

A Long Night is a lithograph from Japan, dated 1924, of a work by Uemura Shoen (1875-1949). Uemura Shoen was among the best-known painters of bijinga, pictures of beautiful women, and the first woman to receive Japan's Order of Culture. A woman in a deep blue kimono bows her head, a white and red collar at her throat. Her black hair is piled high with tortoiseshell combs, a coral ornament and dangling silver pins, against a soft gray ground. Printed headings run along the top and side margins. It is 16.5 inches wide and 14.5 high.

Very little happens, and all of it beautifully.