Mandarin Ducks Swimming under Plum Branch

A chuban-format kacho-ga (bird-and-flower print) from about 1764 to 1775 in the Art Institute of Chicago collection, this design pairs a male and female mandarin ducks gliding side by side beneath a flowering plum branch. The mandarin duck pair, oshidori, is one of the canonical East Asian symbols of conjugal devotion, and the combination of the lovers' ducks with the early-spring plum branch carries an unambiguous symbolism of marital harmony and renewed life. Koryusai handles the subject with the same delicate Harunobu-style palette that characterizes his early prints, building the composition through soft pinks for the plum blossoms, blue-greens for the rippling water, and the iconic russet and indigo plumage of the male duck. Kacho-ga were a respected secondary specialty for Koryusai, and his bird studies of this period are among the most finely registered of the early nishiki-e color prints, prized today both as decorative objects and as records of mid-Edo ornithological observation.