Moon and Autumn Grasses

A six-panel folding screen with a gold-leaf ground. A dark crescent moon rises in the upper left, while delicate sprays of autumn grasses and small blossoms in green and white drift across the panels, with clusters of flowers at the lower corners. The sparse arrangement leaves wide areas of shimmering gold, giving the scene a quiet, open feeling.

Look closer: Small white and pale flowers cluster at the bottom edges of the left and right panels, easily overlooked against the gold.

Artist

Tawaraya Sōtatsu

Date

mid- to late 17th century

Medium

Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink, color, silver, and gold flecks on paper

Source

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Size

2000 × 917 px

Credit (appreciated, not required for public-domain works): The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G. C. Packard, and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975