Toyohiro 豊広: Surimono of Seven Flowers of Autumn for Moon Viewing Festival

Artist: Utagawa Toyohiro 豊広 (1773-1828)Date: ca. 1815  Dimensions: 20.3 x 26.7 cm Otsukimi is a Japanese festival honoring the autumn moon, typically celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar. Traditions of Tsukimi include displays of susuki, silver pampas grass, as well as the presentation of special foods such as rice dumplings, whose shape echoes that of the round moon. Here, to the right of a single poem written with elegant calligraphy we see a beautiful arrangement of silver grass, along with several varieties of autumn flowers, arranged in vase in the form of a woven basket.  Toyohiro designed this surimono probably on the occasion of tsuki-ge in the fall, referring to a haiku at the Heian court. On the right we can see only a half of a beautiful kichô partition, a kind of privacy screen, which was used in mansions of court nobles to keep a lady’s privacy in a large room. For kichô, five katabira, thin layers silk cloth are sewed together and hang down