Overview

This greenish brown mirror features a plain knob, long and narrow in form; there is no inner border; and the rim is triangular in cross section. The thin body of this Japanese mirror in the style of Song-dynasty (960-1279) mirrors is approximately 1 mm. The composition is seen in elevation, from a directly frontal point of view. The decorative motif of small birds in flight, gathering autumn grasses, is a forerunner of Japanese mirror designs from the 12th century on. Representations executed using a fine line are characteristic of Song-style Japanese mirrors in particular, and a number of comparable examples can be seen in other collections. For example, the mirror decorated with autumn grasses and a pair of birds used as the bottom of a sutra container, found in the Sakiyama Sutra Mound in Saga Prefecture, is inscribed with a date corresponding to 1124 (Tenji 1). The delicate and dynamic expressive style of the Kyoto National Museum mirror, however, on which the pampas grasses trail in the wind and the birds fly buoyantly above them, suggests an even earlier production date.