Mokuhanga Kai

Kitao Masayoshi worked as a ukiyo-e artist until he became the official painter to the daimyo of Tsuyama. He then worked in the Kano style using the name Kuwagata Keisai. 

During his period of activity as an ‘Ukiyo-e’ artist, Kitao Masayoshi produced mainly novelette illustrations. After 1794, however, when he became painter in attendance to the Tsuyama fief, he switched mainly to paintings and printed albums. He produced many instructional manuals on how to paint in ‘abbreviated style’ (ryakuga-shiki).

Society finches are a domesticated breed of Benagalese finch that became popular in European zoos in the 1860s. The breeding of the birds as pets is believed to have originated in Japan. This woodblock print created in the 1790s attest to them being kept in Japanese homes before the European interest in them.