Earrings with sapphires and garnets. Miniatures representing incisions by the Master Hiroshige.
Title: The moon seen through maple leaves
Series: Twenty-eight views of the moon
Date: c. 1832
A waterfall bursts through the maple leaves and the moon floods the scene with its light. The maple leaves fall, fluttering in empty space, sustained by the air from the waterfall. Thus, from on high, also fall the words of the poet Tang:
“I cannot bear that the red leaves of autumn
fall upon the green moss
nor that the icy evening wind
enfolds the evening
Bu kan hong ye quig tai di
You shi liang feng mu man tian”
Title: Convolvuli
Date: 1843-1847
The convolvulus is a flower of great symbolic importance. This flower’s fragility needs a support but its strength forces it to bind itself to its support with no possibility of letting go save by death. It is traditionally likened to feminine worlds of delicacy and tenacity.