Hokusai produced a particularly large number of original paintings during the last years of his life. However, as his signature “Sori” applied to it indicates, this work was produced while he was in his mid-thirties, during the first years of his career, right after he broke away from his master Katsukawa Shunsho. This work, critics say, was influenced by Kitagawa Utamaro, the great master of bijin-ga Ukiyo-e portraying beautiful women. The way the courtesan looks while biting her kimono collar, which depicts cherry blossoms scattered over its edges, makes us imagine that she is meditating. Is it because of the letter she is holding in her right hand? In 1903, Charles Lang Freer obtained this work from the Japanese fine art dealer Kobayashi Bunshichi.