大正7年(1918年)に上野・竹之台陳列館で開催された第12回文部省美術展覧会の出品作（左幅）の対幅にあたる作品。踏絵は、江戸時代にキリシタンに背教の証として聖画像などを踏ませた行事で、清方が題材としたのはキリスト教の弾圧が激しかった初期の頃ではなく、年中行事と化した後の長崎の丸山遊女の踏絵です。馴染みの客から遊女たちに贈られる衣装は「踏絵衣装」と呼ばれ、次第にその艶を競うようになりました。当初は対幅で制作されましたが、右幅の踏絵を待つ遊女がかえって主題を弱くすると気づき、左幅のみを出品。この作品で清方は文展推薦（永久無鑑査）となりました。当時、出品作は裕仁親王（後の昭和天皇）が文展に来られた際には、遊女が主題となっていることから取り外されたといいます。

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Tamesaruru Hi (Day of Trial), Right-hand scroll (1918)
color on silk; hanging scroll
184.7 x 77.4 cm

The left-hand scroll of this pair was shown at the twelfth Bunten at the Takenodai Exhibition Hall in Ueno in 1918. In the Edo period, Christians were forced to step on a sacred image in an act referred to as fumi-e to prove that they had renounced the faith. Kiyokata did not take his theme from the early period when the oppression of Christianity was relentless; rather, he has portrayed the act of fumi-e as performed by courtesans in the Maruyama pleasure quarters in Nagasaki, where it had been transformed into an annual event. Favored clients competed to send the courtesans garments that came to be known as “fumi-e costumes” for the event. Originally, this work consisted of a pair of scrolls, but Kiyokata exhibited only the left-hand one after noticing that the subject was weakened by the image in the right-hand scroll of two courtesans waiting their turn to perform the fumi-e. The work earned Kiyokata recommended status for the Bunten, meaning that the works he submitted were no longer vetted by a jury. Incidentally, the work was taken down for the subject when the Hirohito princes (later emperor Shōwa) visited the Bunten.