Shiohi goban no uchi (Five prints of shell-gathering at low tide)

Culture elites in Edo gathered to exchange kyoka, or “crazy” verse: short, witty eipgrams usually in humourous vein, for special occasions. There are affiliated small groups that were socially exclusive and met more frequently. The best poetries were selected after each gathering and to commemorate the members, usually high-ranking samurai, government officials, wealthy prelates, rich merchants, artists and writers, commissioned prominent painters to design prints for the poetries. These commemoratives were known as surimono. They featured lavish printing and block-cutting techniques as well as expensive papers.
This lot is a spectacular example of the genre. Women and a child are depicted digging for clams, while another woman on the right has caught a flounder and her companion has grabbed an octopus. The poems are by the members of the Hisakataya shachu and celebrate the pleasure of beachcombing. Their symbol, the bridge for a koto, a stringed musical instrument that was placed on the floor, appears at the top right of each design.
Hisakataya group commissioned another larger set of surimono of women representing the members of the bandit group, which includes a very similar pentatych of female salt-gatherers on the seashore. They commissioned this set for the New Dragon Year of 1832, and the present lot is likely to have been made around the same time.