A long-tailed blue bird perched on a plum blossom branch (this bird, Cissa erythrorhyncha, of the crow family, exists in China but not in Japan, see no. 16, in: Israel Goldmann, Hiroshige, Birds and Flowers, New York 1988), nishiki-e, signed Hiroshige hitsu, artist's seal yusai, publisher Jakurindo (Wakasaya Yoichi), censor seal kiwame, dated early 1830s. A line from a poem by the Chinese poet Yang Weihzhen: "Ichijudokusen tenka (no) haru" (a single early plum blossom and the whole world is in spring). The present sheet shares its head design with the Boston sheet, MFA, acc. no. 11.21122, which was often extended by a white feather comb at the head in later impressions. Both sheets also share the same type of signature seal. The top of the image shows the same red finish in the same place in both sheets; the middle ground in the grey features she same diagonal line starting from the lowest tail feather and going upwards. In the present sheet, however, the flowers are blue instead of gray with red as in the Boston sheet. Even if this sheet is somewhat compressed and the colours slightly faded, it is probably an early impression from the 1830s; slightly stained, especially at the margins, the latter also slightly damaged, margins slightly trimmed, somewhat wavy, one pasted teat at the back, attached at the upper corners on the reverse, 38.33 x 17 cm, (CT)