Born Shimomura Seizaburo in Wakayama City, Shimomura Kanzan studied in Tokyo under the leading Westernizing traditional painters Kano Hogai and Hashimoto Gaho before graduating with high honours from Tokyo Art School, where he worked as an instructor from 1894. He was among the founders of the Nihon Bijutsuin (Japan Fine Arts Academy) and served as a judge for both the Bunten and the Inten exhibitions. Kanzan was influenced by the Kano school through his early training under Hogai but also incorporated elements of the Edo-period decorative painting tradition, as seen in this revival of the favourite seventeenth-century screen subject of an aristocratic kimono left hanging on an elegantly lacquered screen.