#plucking a branch from a neighbors plum tree

MWW Artwork of the Day (4/2/16)
Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese, 1725–1770)
Plucking a Branch from a Neighbor’s Plum Tree (c. 1768)
Polychrome woodblock print, 27.3 x 20 cm.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Howard Mansfield Collection)

This print is an excellent example of Harunobu’s artistic taste —- reflecting nonsensuous tenderness and exquisiteness of figures. Casting off her sandals, a young woman has climbed onto her maid’s back to break off a branch of a plum tree growing over a tall wall with a tiled ridge. The two women are elegant and gentle despite their tomboyish behavior. The rigid and monotonous pattern of bricks in the fence is a foil for the graceful figures. Despite Harunobu’s depiction of these two young women as innocent, the expression “plucking a branch of plum blossoms” typically refers to a fashionably dressed female and even carries sexual overtones. The young woman wears a kimono (furisode) with hanging sleeves and a design of snow-clad bamboo. Her elaborately tied obi, or sash, has a scrolling floral pattern.

(from the MMA catalog)

More Harunobu prints can be seen in this MWW Special Collection:
* MWW Non-Western Painting Gallery