Suzuki Harunobu was a printmaker and painter of the Edo period (1615–1868) and a seminal figure in the history of Japanese art. His most accomplished prints date to the last five years of his life and utilise new developments in the production of polychrome prints from multiple woodblocks. By carving registration marks (kentô) on the block and using them to align the paper, artists were no longer limited in the number of blocks they could use to produce a single print. Such prints are called nishiki-e (‘brocade pictures’) after the magnificent brocades produced in the Nishijin district of Kyoto.

Despite the wealth of colour choices afforded him by developments in printing from woodblocks, Harunobu here chooses a muted palette. Within a frame in the shape of a Japanese fan, a Chinese beauty plays the five-string koto – a long horizontal harp.