Tosa MitsuokiJapanese, 1617–1691Autumn Maples with Poem Slips
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Not on view at present
Where is “Autumn Maples with Poem Slips” now? Collection: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Not on view at present. Checked October 12, 2026.
Chicago, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the painting
Japanese aristocrats engaged in the elegant custom of recollecting classical poetry while viewing spring and autumn foliage. In these delicate screens, premier court painter Tosa Mitsuoki meditated on the inevitable passage of beauty by depicting the melancholy hours after the departure of reveling courtiers. A cherry tree bursts into bloom on the right screen (seen here at top), while its mate displays the brilliant red and gold foliage of maples in autumn. Slips of poetry, called tanzaku, waft from the blossoming limbs, the lingering signs of a human presence. Courtiers (whose names are recorded in a seventeenth-century document) assisted Mitsuoki by inscribing the narrow strips with quotations of appropriate seasonal poetry from twelfth- and thirteenth-century anthologies.
Read on
The screens were either commissioned by or given to Tofukumon’in (1607–1678), a daughter of the Tokugawa shogun who married the emperor Gomizunoo (1596–1680). In an era otherwise marked by increasing control of the feudal shogunate over imperial prerogatives, this royal couple encouraged a renaissance of courtly taste that nostalgically evoked the past glories of early medieval aristocratic life.
Art Institute of ChicagoCC BY 4.0
Details
- Accession number
- 1977.157
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Image: Art Institute of Chicago — CC0
