Bairei hyakucho gafu. Ten Pl.17 by Kono Bairei Music Owen Jones's "Leaves from Nature"

Owen Jones's "Leaves from Nature" series

soft sage greens

By the fourth panel

translucent tones characteristic of his collotype photographic process — a technique that brought unprecedented colour fidelity to Japanese botanical imagery in the late 19th century

It is scientific illustration operating at the level of fine art

Bairei hyakucho gafu. Ten Pl.17 by Kono Bairei Music Owen Jones's "Leaves from Nature"Plate 17 closes this section of the Hyakucho Gafu with a bird in a low, settled posture that gives the composition a sense of quiet resolution. Bairei's ink technique here emphasizes the body's roundness through tonal contrast darker values at the core, fading toward the edges while the background remains bare. The result is a portrait like focus, the subject fully present without the need for context or setting. Observational, minimal, and quietly