New Year's Surimono

A late-eighteenth- to early-nineteenth-century New Year's print, this surimono by Ryuryukyo Shinsai exemplifies the season-specific commissions on which the surimono trade was largely built. Kyoka clubs across Edo distributed printed greetings to members at the new year, and the prints functioned as both poem-vehicles and luxury keepsakes. Shinsai's design—characteristically restrained, with the deep embossing and metallic accents typical of deluxe production—would have left room for one or more kyoka verses inscribed above or beside the image. The Art Institute of Chicago, which preserves the impression, holds particularly strong examples of Shinsai's New Year's work, a context essential for understanding the rhythms of his career: a designer of his rank produced multiple surimono each winter for circulation in the first days of the lunar new year.