The Proper Way of Drinking New Year's Sake (Toso no miki namesomuru tei), from the series "Teaching Manners According to the Colors of the Spring (Shunshoku shitsukekata)"

The Proper Way of Drinking New Year's Sake (Toso no miki namesomuru tei), from the series Teaching Manners According to the Colors of the Spring (Shunshoku shitsukekata), is a koban surimono in the Art Institute of Chicago dated to around 1807. The series treats etiquette, manners, and New Year customs with the gentle didactic-humorous tone characteristic of late-Edo culture, illustrating the proper performance of various spring rituals as a way of celebrating both the seasonal occasion and the social refinement of the kyoka audience. Toso (also spelled toso) is the spiced medicinal sake traditionally drunk on the New Year for health and longevity, prepared by steeping a packet of herbs in sake or mirin; the proper ritual order of drinking - youngest to oldest in some traditions, oldest to youngest in others - was a topic of household lore. Shunman's image presumably depicts the toso ritual being performed with the prescribed grace, the figures rendered in his characteristic slender style, the koban format (a small standard size) keeping the scene intimate. The series title's playful linkage of "manners" to "the colors of the spring" reflects the kyoka aesthetic of treating mundane subjects with literary elevation. The Art Institute of Chicago's preservation of this and related sheets from the Shunshoku shitsukekata series provides important evidence of the role surimono played in transmitting and idealizing Edo etiquette.