Apricot in the evening

Filed among Shusui's night scenes, the print likely depicts an apricot tree (anzu) — or possibly the closely related plum (ume), whose blossoms occupy similar visual territory in Japanese print conventions — at dusk. Twilight botanical studies in mokuhanga draw on a tradition extending from Hiroshige's late kachō-e through the shin-hanga botanicals of Koson and Hasui, in which the time of day is signaled by graduated bokashi from a deeper indigo upper register to a paler horizon. The apricot, blooming earlier in the calendar than the cherry, appears in late winter to early spring and was associated in classical poetry with patience and quiet endurance. Compositionally, evening botanical prints often place the flowering branch against a flat tonal ground, with the blossoms reserved as un-inked white paper or printed in the palest pink. Without baseline impressions for comparison, the specific publisher, edition, and colorway of this Shusui work cannot be cited; the subject and mood, however, sit comfortably within the period's revival of nature subjects.