Okame Viewing Plum Blossoms, with poem by Katsurarō

Okame Viewing Plum Blossoms, with poem by Katsuraro, is a graceful surimono-style ukiyo-e print by Katsushika Hokusai that pairs the round-faced goddess of mirth with the first flowers of the Edo new year. In this privately commissioned image, Okame, traditional emblem of good humor and domestic happiness, leans forward to admire a branch of plum blossoms held delicately in her hand, her plump cheeks flushed and her hair simply dressed. A poem by the kyoka master Katsuraro is integrated into the composition, a hallmark of the literary kyoka circles for which Hokusai produced so many of his finest small-format prints. As a leading designer of Edo ukiyo-e, Hokusai brought to surimono the same compositional discipline visible in his celebrated landscapes, refining the figure through clear contour and a restrained palette enhanced with metallic pigments and embossing in finer states. The plum, blooming while snow still clings to the branch, signals resilience, scholarly virtue, and the promise of spring, while Okame's presence transforms a simple flower-viewing into an invocation of luck for the year ahead. The Harvard Art Museums preserve this ukiyo-e print as part of a deep collection of Hokusai surimono, where the picture rewards close inspection of its delicate brushwork and embedded poetic exchange. For collectors, the work offers a rare entry into the intimate, gift-exchange culture of early nineteenth-century Edo, mediated by the wit and technical precision of Japan's most internationally recognized woodblock artist.