Beauty representing autumn, from an untitled series of beauties representing the four seasons

This color woodblock print (nishiki-e) in oban format, held by the Art Institute of Chicago (reference 32974, Frederick W. Gookin Collection), is the autumn sheet from Utagawa Kuniyasu's untitled series of beauties representing the four seasons, dated by the museum to c. 1818-1830. Each print in the series places a single elegantly elongated female figure against a sparse ground, with the seasonal reference carried by accessories, robe patterning, and pose rather than by an overt landscape setting. The autumn beauty wears a kimono whose densely patterned surface displays the close-grained decorative detailing characteristic of mature Bunsei-era bijin-ga, with the deep mineral pigments and selective embossing that distinguished the period's most refined polychrome printing. The series belongs to the long Edo tradition of "four seasons" beauty sets, an inherited compositional schema that allowed designers to demonstrate their command of mood and decorative variation across a uniform format. Kuniyasu's contribution, produced during his most accomplished decade as a bijin-ga designer, presents the Edo townswoman in the willowy idiom that distinguishes his mature personal style from his Utagawa-school peers. The sheet measures 37.5 by 25 cm and entered the Art Institute's collection through Gookin, one of the founding figures of American collecting of Japanese prints in the early twentieth century. It is a representative example of Kuniyasu's late-Bunka and Bunsei-era practice in the standard oban format and a key document of the elaborate decorative bijin-ga produced in Edo during the 1820s.