A Woman with a Poem Card, from the series "A Set of Seven for the Katsushika Club"

From a [surimono](/glossary/surimono) [shikishiban](/glossary/shikishiban) series commissioned by the Katsushika kyoka circle, this print depicts a woman seated with a poem card, the visual subject and the verse-bearing object merged into a single emblem of literary practice. Held by the Art Institute of Chicago and dated to around 1825, the design integrates metallic pigments into the woman's garments and the surrounding ground, producing the lacquerlike sheen that distinguishes the Katsushikaren commissions from less expensively printed contemporaries. The Set of Seven for the Katsushika Club is among the most refined of Gakutei's surimono series and would have circulated as New Year's greetings or commemorative tokens within a small membership, each impression hand-assembled from dozens of blocks and finishing techniques. The poem card itself, often inscribed with verse from a circle member, makes the print into a self-referential object: an image of a woman writing or holding a poem, on which poems are themselves printed, addressed to readers who are themselves poets. The Art Institute's holding of multiple impressions from the Set of Seven preserves the cohesion of the series and the consistent palette Gakutei deployed across it.