The screens are among the first works of Japanese painter and lacquerer Ogata Kōrin after he attained the rank … See more

Kōrin made a similar work about 5 to 12 years later, another pair of six-panel screens, known as Irises at Yatsuhashi (Eight Bridges) (八橋図屏風, Yatsuhashi-zu Byōbu). This second pair of screens has been held … See more

Both pairs of screens are inspired by an episode in The Tales of Ise, where the unnamed protagonist of the story (most likely Ariwara no Narihira) encounters the flowers near a rustic eight-plank bridge over a river. He … See more

The screens clearly influenced the Irises paintings by Vincent van Gogh: he could never have seen the originals, which were still in Japan, but they were reproduced as woodcuts in a collection, the Kōrin Hyakuzu Kōhen. … See more