The Hanetsuki (Spring) — Girls Playing Battledore

The Hanetsuki (Spring) is one of Hasegawa Konobu IV's set of four seasonal genre prints issued by the Uchida printers of Kyoto in the 1950s. The composition depicts three young girls in elaborately patterned New Year kimono playing hanetsuki, the traditional battledore-and-shuttlecock game associated with the first days of the year (oshōgatsu). The figures hold the wooden paddles (hagoita) painted with decorative scenes, and the small feathered shuttlecock (hane) suggests airborne movement above them. Konobu IV's treatment of the children's kimono — each in a distinct New Year color register of red, green, and blue against the patterned ground of the print — emphasizes the seasonal celebration of childhood that was the central preoccupation of his Uchida output. The print measures approximately 42 by 29 cm, slightly larger than the standard chuban, and was issued in saturated polychrome with attention to the textile patterns of the children's clothing. Documented through the Japanese Art Open Database from the Robert O. Muller research files, the impression preserves the bright color register and crisp linework of the Uchida editions, and it forms part of Konobu IV's modern continuation of the traditional Japanese seasonal-print genre, in which the year's progress is marked through the small ritual celebrations of childhood rather than the famous scenic landscapes of the earlier ukiyo-e tradition.