Artist: Mizuno Toshikata (水野年方, 1866–1908) — with artist's seal Toshikata Titel: Newspaper Extra (Gogai, 号外) Source: Kuchi-e (frontispiece) for Bungei Kurabu (文芸倶楽部), vol. 10 no. 6, 1904 Technique: Woodblock print (mokuhanga) — kuchi-e, bijin-ga; Period: Meiji era (c. 1890s–1900s) Format: Kuchi-e (frontispiece), approx. 30 × 22 cm (11¾ × 8⅝ in.) Condition: Very good colour. Light overall toning, two folds as usual for a frontispiece of this period; ------------------------------------------ Description: A young woman in a splash-patterned (kasuri) kimono and a blue leaf-print obi pauses, head bowed, to read a gogai — a printed newspaper "extra." In 1904, the year this frontispiece appeared, such extras were synonymous with the breaking news of the Russo-Japanese War, lending a quiet contemporary charge to an otherwise intimate, everyday moment. Dragonflies drift across the soft mint-and-cream ground at right, a delicate seasonal touch typical of Toshikata's refined late kuchi-e. Condition: Very good colour. Light overall toning, two folds as usual for a magazine frontispiece of this date. Please study the photographs and judge condition for yourself.