Two Ladies Awaiting for Spring

Dated to the early nineteenth century and possibly to 1803 or 1815, Two Ladies Awaiting for Spring is a bijin-ga surimono in which Shinsai gives the seasonal-anticipation theme—familiar from classical Japanese poetry—a contemporary Edo setting. Two women in formal kimono occupy the print, and their gestures and the surrounding details suggest the late-winter expectation of the plum bloom and the new year. The print belongs to the great Bunka-Bunsei flowering of figural surimono, when designers like Shinsai, Hokkei, and Gakutei pushed the printer's skills in fabric pattern, hairline work, and embossing to the limits of the woodblock medium. The Art Institute of Chicago, which holds the impression, preserves several of Shinsai's bijin surimono, and together they suggest the importance of female figural subjects within his largely still-life-dominated output.