This endearing design is a spring print from the second year of Kyowa (1802). Three children are picking young greens beside a stream. They have finished their hair-cutting ceremony at the age of three and are gradually regrowing their hair. Each wears layers of colourful patterned kimonos secured with ties and are busy collecting greens. One child carries a full basket on his back whilst another proudly shows his basket of greens. The child on the left is intently digging at the base of the greens. The stream beside them is delicately depicted using only blind printing.

Five kyoka poems appear on the left, one of which is by the leader of the Asakusa Group, Asakusa-an (Asakusa no Ichihito (1755-1821). The other four poems are by members of the group from Etchu Toyama.

The inscription at the far left "First Spring of the Year of the Dog" (壬戌はつ春) corresponds to 1802. Hishikawa Sori received his artist name "Sori" from his master Hokusai in the 10th year of Kansei (1798) and he produced many illustrated calendar prints (egoyomi) and prints.

Dr. Gerhard Pulverer is a German medical researcher who worked at the University of Cologne. He bought his first Japanese woodblock prints in Kyoto in the 1970s while visiting Japan for a scientific conference. For more than thirty years, he and his wife Rosemarie travelled the world assembling a large collection woodblock prints and Japanese illustrated books (ehon). In forming the collection, he drew on the advice of highly regarded experts including Jack Hillier, C.H. Mitchell, Tim Clark and Ellis Tinios.

In 2007 the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, DC purchased the illustrated book collection. It is today regarded as one of the most outstanding and comprehensive collections of Japanese illustrated books outside Japan.

For an insightful interview with the collector by Ellis Tinios (on behalf of the Smithsonian National Museum of Art), go to: https://pulverer.si.edu/node/186