New Year's Day, from the series "Fashionable Three Beginnings (Furyu mittsu no hajime)"

Isoda Koryusai produced this chuban nishiki-e of New Year's Day around 1765 for the series "Furyu mittsu no hajime" (Fashionable Three Beginnings), an early bijin-ga set in which three thematic openings, of the day, of the year, and of an undertaking, are recast as scenes of fashionable Edo women. The series belongs to the first wave of full-color Edo ukiyo-e prints produced after the 1765 nishiki-e revolution, when the slim figure type and lyrical mood of Suzuki Harunobu briefly dominated the entire field. Koryusai, working as a direct Harunobu successor, follows that idiom closely, presenting his two figures at small chuban scale with delicate features, narrow shoulders and the long-sleeved furisode and casually wrapped obi favored in Meiwa-era bijin-ga. The New Year's Day setting is signaled through standard auspicious motifs, pine, plum and the special grooming and dress reserved for the first day of the year, and the season is keyed through subtle changes in the background interior rather than through inscribed text. The Art Institute of Chicago impression preserves the soft, almost pastel palette of pinks, olives and greys that Edo collectors associated with luxury early nishiki-e. Within Koryusai's output the series is significant for showing him already developing a strong feel for series-based bijin-ga before his later, more ambitious projects such as the Yoshiwara fashion plates of the mid-1770s.