A flock of plovers on the Tamagawa River

The composition, simple yet elegant, depicts two female figures on a veranda, their gaze drawn to a flock of plovers (chidori) taking flight over the Tamagawa River, one of Japan’s six sacred rivers. These settings were recurring themes in classical waka poetry and were immortalised by poets of the Heian period.

This theme is drawn from classical Japanese poetry, particularly the anthology of the Six Immortal Poets. The print is imbued with poetry and delicacy, an atmosphere characteristic of Harunobu’s work. The plover is often associated with its melancholic cry, regarded as a symbol of solitude or the melancholy of travel. The presence of the chidori suggests that the women are not merely observing the birds, but are absorbed by the emotional resonance of their cries and the scene itself.

The plover (chidori) motif is extremely common and significant in Japanese art, ranking among the most frequently recurring natural motifs. Major artists such as Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige also incorporated this motif into their works. It is a poetic and seasonal symbol that allows artists to establish a visual dialogue with literary tradition, whilst offering a graphically effective and highly aesthetic motif.

By depicting two women from the Edo period observing this scene, Harunobu creates a ‘mitate-e’—a common technique inukiyo-e that involves reinterpreting a classical theme—in this case, poetry—within a modern context. The women embody the elegance of their era whilst reflecting on a subject that dates back a thousand years.

A poem is inscribed in two vertical columns in the top right-hand corner of the print, which might be translated as follows: In the village of Tamagawa, on the reed-swept shore, the capricious wind of a thousand years … it seems to be the flight of the plovers.

Suzuki Harunobu (c. 1725–1770) was a leading figure inukiyo-e, the art of Japanese woodblock printing during the Edo period. As a pioneer of polychrome woodblock printing, he elevatedukiyo-e from the status of a folk craft to that of a sophisticated and luxurious art form. This technique paved the way for generations of artists, including such famous figures as Utamaro, Hokusai and Hiroshige, who could not have created their masterpieces without this technical revolution. His influence was immense, marking a break with the more robust styles of the preceding period and ushering in an era of refinement and lyricism in Japanese printmaking.