Japanese Children of Yesterday (aka: Two Little Girls Playing Ball)

Elizabeth Keith

Elizabeth Keith often portrayed the daily lives of people she met on her extensive travels. The Scottish-born, self-taught artist first visited Japan in the around 1915 with her sister and brother-in-law, and ended up staying there for nine years, eventually working with the famous publisher Shosaburo Watanabe. Her color woodcuts from this time proved popular with Western collectors, especially for those who appreciated her attention to detail.

Here, she depicts two Japanese children dressed in traditional, intricately patterned robes, playing with a kamifusen, a delicate, hollow "ball" made of colored wax paper. The older girl teases the younger child by tying the ball to a stick and dangling it above the child's head. Keith renders the background in neutral tones to allow the vivid costumes and ball to pop forward, and illuminates the playful image with a soft golden light filtering through shoji panels.

Despite her clear talent and popularity, the years leading up to World War II irrevocably changed the future of Western artists living in Japan. The Miles catalogue raisonne of Keith's prints notes: "Reprinted through 1936 by artisans, Watanabe is supposed to have stopped printing this image when anti-foreign feeling made sales to increasingly scarce Westerners unlikely." Her work has since found a resurgence of appreciation.