This is the left panel of a set of three pictures illustrating the Three Evenings, consecutive verses from section four of the imperial anthology Shin kokinshu. For the right and center panels see lots 305 and 306. Harunobu first designed a triptych on this theme with single figures as calendar pictures for Kyosen in 1765 (see C. van Rappard-Boon, gen. ed., The Age of Harunobu: early Japanese Prints c. 1700-1780, vol. 1 of Catalogue of the Collection of Japanese Prints [Amsterdam: Rijksprentekabinet/Rijksmuseum, 1977], no. 31, p. 41).
Another complete set is held by the British Museum, illustrated in David B. Waterhouse, Harunobu and his Age: The Development of Colour Printing in Japan (London: The Trustees of the British Museum, 1964), nos. 30, 31 and 32; and Kobayashi Tadashi, ed., Nishiki-e no tanjo: Edo shomin bunka no kaika/The Birth of Nishiki-e: Full-color Woodblock Prints and Edo Popular Culture, exh. cat. (Tokyo: Tokyo Metropolitan Edo Tokyo Museum, 1996), pls. 4-5. Professor Waterhouse points out that the backgrounds for both sets were derived from a composite illustration of the Three Evenings in volume 1 of Ehon Yamato hiji (1735) by Nishikawa Sukenobu.

For other impressions of this print see Waterhouse, Bosuton bijutsukan/Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, supplemental vol. 1, Harunobu I in Ukiyo-e shuka (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1982), pl. 216; and Jack Hillier, Suzuki Harunobu: An exhibition of his colour-prints and illustrated books on the occasion of the bicentenary of his death in 1770, exh. cat. (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1970), no. 45 (Portland Art Museum, Oregon).

Another impression of this left panel was sold Sotheby's, London, Catalogue of Highly Important Japanese Prints, Illustrated Books, Drawings and Fan Paintings from the Henri Vever Collection: Part II, 26 March, 1975, lot 56.