ランプの明かりの傍で、若い女性たちが「こっくり」または「こくり」などと呼ばれる占いをする様子を描いています。この占いではまず、三本の竹を中ほどで縛り、それをねじり開いて盆をのせ、占う三人が周囲にすわり右手で軽く盆を押さえます。次に、一人が祈祷をし、盆が自然と動くのを待ちます。その盆の動き方によって物事を占うものです。
明治時代の占い遊びを主題にし、三人の女性それぞれの着物や髪型を描き分けた本作は、当時の文化や風俗を表した風俗画と呼べる作品です。同じ主題で構図のやや異なる作品を、同年開催の七絃会第2回展に出品しました。

Kokkuri Divination (1931)
color on paper; framed
61.6 x 96.0 cm

Seated by a floor lamp, three young women are engaged in a divination game called kokkuri or kokuri. The kokkuri consists of three bamboo sticks tied together in the middle to form a tripod on top of which a tray is balanced. The three women sit around the contraption, their hands lightly pressing on the tray. One of them asks a question and then they wait for the tray to move of its own accord. The fortune is read based on the movement of the tray.
With his subject a divination game from the Meiji period, Kiyokata has drawn the three women with distinctly different clothing and hairstyles, turning the work into a genre painting depicting the culture and customs in those days. In the same year (1931), Kiyokata exhibited another work on the same subject, but with a slightly different composition, at the second Shichigenkai Exhibition.