Japanese Lithograph

Hair piled high, a striped kimono and a glance toward the orange blooms outside.

This lithograph, Looking Out From Window, is from Japan, dated 1910, in ink on paper, by an unknown artist. In the early 20th century, Japanese publishers often reproduced paintings of fashionable women by lithography, a faster and cheaper process than carving woodblocks. A young woman sits by an open window, her black hair in a full, rounded style with a red ornament. Her dark kimono is finely striped in gray, tied with a colorful patterned obi. Beyond the sill, tall orange flowers rise from green leaves against a pale sky. It is 7.9 inches wide and 11 high.

Window seats were made for exactly this sort of thing.