大正2年（1913）、清方は、健康のすぐれなかった長女清子を連れて、夏は大磯の海辺の家に過ごし、秋には雑司ヶ谷に家を借りて転地しました。その頃に描かれたと思われます。夕涼みする二人の女性にはじまり、日々の生活を営む女性たちの姿や日常の情景が実に生き生きと描かれています。大正3年（1914）5月発行の『鏑木清方美人画譜』（日本美術学院刊）のなかに本画巻の一場面と構図等が類似するものがあります。卓上芸術の代表作の一つとしては戦後の《朝夕安居》を挙げることができますが、この作品や、《夏の生活》、《金沢絵日記》、《君ヶ嵜漫筆（金沢絵日記の二）》、《遊心庵漫筆》など、金沢の別荘で過ごした日常の情景を主な主題とした作品群も秀逸です。
Summer Memories (The first half, Woman in Summer) (1911-1912)
ink and color on paper; handscroll
27.8 x 956.2 cm
(
Woman in Summer exhibited at the 22th
Ugōkai Exhibition)
In 1913, Kiyokata took his older daughter Kiyoko, who was in poor health, to spend the summer in a seaside house at Ōiso. In the autumn, he rented a house at Zōshigaya for a change of air. These sketches are probably from that period. Beginning with two women enjoying the cool evening breeze, the drawings are lively depictions of everyday scenes and the figures of women going about their daily lives. The
Album of Beauties by Kaburaki Kiyokata (Nihon Bijutsu Gakuin edition), published in May 1914, includes one scene and some compositions that are similar to the ones in this picture scroll. The postwar
Chōseki Ankyo (Daily Life of the Common People in Downtown of the Meiji Period) is an example of a masterpiece of tabletop art, but Kiyokata also produced other superb picture scrolls that mainly depicted everyday scenes at the summer home in Kanazawa including
Daily Life in Summer,
Kanazawa Enikki (Kanazawa Sketch Diary),
Random Sketches of Kimigasaki, Kanazawa Enikki II (Kanazawa Sketch Diary II), and
Yūshinan manpitsu (Random Jottings at Yūshinan).
