Dave has written about this particular print before; here are a few of his notes:

"[This print is a type of print] known as kuchi-e (frontispiece), and dates from 1905. It was created by the famous designer Tomioka Eisen, on commission from the company publishing the magazine ‘Bungei Kurabu’, in which it appeared that year. Most of the kuchi-e were illustrations of an episode or scene from one of the stories in the magazine. This lady seems fairly mysterious - perhaps there is quite a good story waiting to be discovered by some researcher!

These Meiji-era kuchi-e are products of the era right at the changeover between traditional printing methods and the printing press. The pages of the magazines were set in type and printed on presses, but the frontispieces were made with the old methods. Those carvers and printers - who were facing the total extinction of their trade - must have been very grateful to get these jobs, and it shows. The prints are absolutely magnificent, with extremely fine detail and a very large number of impressions on each design."

To see an even more detailed description of this print by Dave, please see the following link.

To order a reproduction of this print created at the Mokuhankan, please see this link (dependent upon availability).

This print appeared in a story titled Yuki no Hi ("Snowy Day") in volume 11, issue 3, of Bungei Kurabu, published in Meiji 38 (1905).