The Yang Guifei Cherry Tree (Yokihisakura), from the series "Cherry Trees for the Katsushika Circle (Katsushika sakuratsukushi)"

From the Katsushika sakuratsukushi, a [surimono](/glossary/surimono) series of cherry trees commissioned by the Katsushika kyoka circle, this [shikishiban](/glossary/shikishiban) depicts the Yang Guifei cherry, a famous Edo-period variety named for the legendary Tang-dynasty consort whose tragic story was an inexhaustible source of literary allusion. Held by the Art Institute of Chicago and dated to around 1821 or 1822, the print exemplifies the Katsushikaren commissions' habit of linking famous cherry varieties to legendary women, producing surimono that operate simultaneously as botanical illustration and historical-poetic emblem. The Yang Guifei story, recounted famously in Bai Juyi's Song of Everlasting Sorrow and adapted endlessly in Japanese drama and verse, gave the cherry variety a layered set of associations with imperial favor, doomed beauty, and the seasonal melancholy of cherry blossoms themselves. Gakutei renders the cherry with the surimono tradition's characteristic combination of botanical precision and decorative restraint, reserving metallic pigments for accents that catch the light against the soft pinks and creams of the blossoms.