Anonymous | Pheasants beneath wisteria | Edo period, late 17th - early 18th century

Two long-tailed pheasants shelter beneath wisteria vine hanging from bamboo stilts. The richly applied gold-leaf foreground merges indistinguishably with the trailing wisteria petals and band of emerging cloud, lending an overall dreamlike quality to the composition. Some of the wisteria is rendered in thickly applied pigment and gold-leaf so that it stands out in moriage, or ‘piling on’ of pigment, imparting a tactile quality and visual depth highly effective when viewed by candlelight in the interior of a Japanese mansion residence. A further cloud demarcates the background, rendered with stippled texture and applied kirikane, or cut squares of gold leaf, more often associated with the decoration of lacquerware. To the left of the scene, hills painted in a deep mineral green pigment and waters rendered in silvery stylised ripples, provide counterpoint to the rich application of gold. 

The pairing of male and female long-tailed pheasants with wisteria is auspicious: the pheasants with their extended tail feathers, and the wisteria with its trailing vines, are associated with familial longevity, as well as the prosperity of one’s offspring, making the subject a particularly suitable gift for a wedding trousseau.