Ito Shinsui, born in Tokyo, spent his youth in poverty when his father lost employment. Shinsui was working in printing when in 1910, he was inspired by the work of Hayami Gyoshu (1894-1935) to become a painter. The following year he became a pupil of the well-known Kyoto figure painter Kaburagi Kiyokata (1878-1973), who allowed him to study painting at night. Shinsui first exhibited his painting in 1912 with the Tatsumi Gakkai, a student painting society, then exhibited with the Japan Art Institute (Inten) in 1914, and with the Ministry of Education competitive exhibition (Bunten) in 1915. At the same time, Shinsui began to design woodblock prints for the publisher Watanabe Shozaburo and became a leader in the movement to revitalize that medium. In 1933, Shinsui was elected a judge for the Teiten, the new government-sponsored exhibition, and in 1958 was elected a member of the Japan Arts Academy.

Shinsui's subject matter was primarily beautiful women (bijin-ga), though he was not limited to that genre. His images are essentially traditional, building upon the achievements of Edo period ukiyo-e masters, but his subjects are contemporary women rendered through an idealized naturalism. Shinsui combines an essentially traditional palette with a painterly touch, shading to create a sense of three-dimensional form, and even, as in the painting offered here, a concern for light and shadow.