The setting suggestive of the beginning of love between a young man and woman is part of the romantic world in which Harunobu exceled. During the Kanei – Hōreki eras (1748-64), there were works picturing love, such as a man and woman sharing an umbrella, by the forerunner Ukiyo-e artists Okumura Masanobu (1686-1764), Ishikawa Toyonobu (1711-85) and Torii Kiyohiro (?-?), but Harunobu’s artworks brimming with lyricism could be described as quintessential.
This picture appears to take its idea from an illustration by Nishikawa Sukenobu in Ehon Minanogawa [Kyoho 18 (1733)]. In Sukenobu’s picture, the young man climbs a ladder and gives a shuttlecock to the young woman, who holds a battledore, and it includes a love poem by late Heian - early Kamakura Period poet, Fujiwara no Shunzei: “Shirurameya, yado no kozue o fukawasu, Kaze ni tsuketemo Omou kokoro o (Did you ever know, even touched by the wind blowing around the treetops of the inn, of the heart thinking of you?)”