Young Samurai and Female Attendants Practicing Archery, Half of a Diptych

In addition to his celebrated kabuki actor prints, Toyokuni excelled at pictures of beautiful women, incorporating the long, lithe figure type that had come into vogue with the work of Kitagawa Utamaro (1750–1806) and Torii Kiyonaga (1752–1815) in the preceding decades. Archery was a refined activity associated with the samurai warrior class; the man kneeling in the middle is clearly identified as a young samurai with his shaved forelock and hakama pants.