This is one of the two or three most famous subjects in all
the range of Harunobu's work. To many it seems his crowning
achievement. -Louis V. Ledoux

There are four chuban versions, all signed Suzuki Harunobu ga, of this print of lovers dressed in black and white, like a Crow and a Heron. The earliest lacks the printed outline on the snowy edge of the umbrella; two lines extend across the top of the picture; the willow branch at the left nearly touches the umbrella, and snow is falling. Impressions of this version are illustrated in Helen C. Gunsaulus, Harunobu, Koryusai, Shigemasa, their Followers and Contemporaries, in The Clarence Buckingham Collection of Japanese Prints (Chicago: The Art Institute, 1965), no. 255; Kobayashi Tadashi, Harunobu, vol. 2 of Ukiyo-e taikei (Tokyo: Shueisha, 1973), pl. 32 (Art Institute of Chicago); David B. Waterhouse, Harunobu and his Age: The Development of Colour Printing in Japan (London: The Trustees of the British Museum, 1964), no. 33 (British Museum); Kobayashi Tadashi, ed., Harunobu, Nihon no bijutsu 5, no. 228 (Tokyo: Shibundo, 1985), fig. 128 (Honolulu Academy of Arts); Harunobu in Zaigai hiho: Obei shuzo ukiyo-e shusei (Tokyo: Gakushu Kenkyusha, 1969-73), no. 54 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mansfield Collection); Waterhouse, Bosuton bijutsukan/Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, supplemental vol. 1, Harunobu I in Ukiyo-e shuka (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1982), no. 107.
The second version, illustrated here, has a printed outline on the snowy edge of the umbrella, one line extending across the top of the picture, the leftmost branch is shorter and far from the umbrella, and the blue sky (here faded) has no snow. Only two other impressions of this version seem to be known: one held by the Bibliothque Nationale, Paris (inventory no. 218), the other originally from Hayashi Tadamasa, which passed to Bullier, at a Tokyo auction in October, 1919, Yamanaka, Garland, Ledoux, Kosherak, Gale and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. This version is illustrated in Fujikake Shizuya, Harunobu, vol. 17 of Toyo bijutsu bunko (Tokyo: Atoriesha, 1939), no. 71 (Garland Collection); Hayashi Tadamasa, Dessins, Estampes, Livres Illustrs du Japon Runis par T. Hayashi... (Paris: Htel Druout, 1902), no. 81; Vignier and Inada, Estampes Japonaises: Primitives, Tires des Collections de... et Exposes au Muse des Arts Dcoratifs en Fvrier 1909, reprinted in 2 vols. (Geneva: Minkoff Reprint, 1973), pl. XVII, no. 195, Bullier collection); and Yoshida, Harunobu zenshu (Tokyo: Takamizawa Mokuhansha, 1942), no. 471.

A third chuban version with printed outline on the snowy edge of the umbrella and falling snow is illustrated in Waterhouse, Bosuton bijutsukan/Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, supplemental vol. 1, Harunobu I in Ukiyo-e shuka (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1982), no. 240. An impression of a fourth version with bamboo at the upper right and flowers on the horizon is in the Bibliothque Nationale, Paris. Harunobu also designed an oban version of this subject (Yoshida, Harunobu zenshu, op. cit., no. 625; Ukiyo-e taikei, op. cit., no. 165); a pillar print (Yoshida, Harunobu zenshu, op. cit., no. 607); and what appears to be a narrow panel version (Yoshida, op. cit., no. 606). Koryusai and Buncho designed prints of this subject in the early 1770s.