Young Couple Under an Umbrella in the Snow

Dated to circa 1770 and held by the Art Institute of Chicago, this chuban-format color woodblock print depicts a young couple sheltering beneath a single umbrella as snow falls around them. The aiaigasa, two lovers under one umbrella, is one of the most famous romantic motifs in ukiyo-e and one that Suzuki Harunobu had made canonical in the late 1760s. Koryusai's treatment, executed at the moment of his closest stylistic alignment with his teacher, transposes the motif into his own slightly more grounded idiom, with the lovers' kimono carrying heavier patterns and the snowfall built up through delicate white embossing and soft gray gradations of sky. The chuban format places the figures in intimate proximity to the viewer, and the implied poetic temperature of winter and shared shelter gives the print an emotional weight that recurs throughout Koryusai's bijin-ga of the early 1770s.