Court Lady Praising the Plum Blossom

A print of 1830 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection, this design depicts a court lady praising the plum blossom — a subject closely related to (and possibly a variant of) the Art Institute of Chicago's late-1820s 'Court lady admiring plum blossoms' surimono. The two prints together suggest that the courtly-plum theme was one Shigenobu returned to more than once in his late period, and that the dignified Heian-period court lady set against an early-spring plum branch had a stable place in his repertoire of kyōka-circle subjects. Plum-blossom appreciation belonged to the classical canon of feminine aristocratic refinement — a tradition that ran from the Heian-period Ise monogatari and Kokin Wakashū through Edo-period bunjin (literati) practice — and surimono patrons of the 1820s and 1830s were particularly drawn to such subjects as flattering reflections of their own cultivated sensibility. The Met's date of 1830 places the print in the last two years of Shigenobu's life; the handling carries forward the refined small-figure manner of his earlier surimono with the slightly cooler, more linear stylization typical of the late Hokusai studio.