Overview

This bronze mirror is blackish brown in color with a reflective face plated with tin. The surface on the inside of the rim, seen at lower right of the image, is uneven and rough, apparently a casting defect. The tip of the conical knob is flattened. The primary design composition of auspicious flowers and paired phoenixes, usually associated with eight-lobed mirrors, has here been transferred to a round mirror with a straight, narrow rim and an inner border between the inner and outer bands on the back of the mirror. Although the tail feathers bring to mind phoenixes, their bodies resemble those appearing in motifs featuring ordinary birds.

An early example of this type of pictorial composition can be seen in a mirror patterned with arabesques and paired phoenixes, dated to 1077 (Jôhô 4). Together with a dated label, the mirror was inserted into the torso of a figure of the Medicine Buddha, Yakushi, the main object of worship at Shitennô-ji Temple in Mie Prefecture. In the museum example, the arabesques spring directly from the knob, an unusual feature, and the arabesques in the outer band take the newer form of three superimposed arcing tendrils. Comparing the phoenixes in both mirrors, the museum piece is definitely more recent, in all probability dating to the 11th century.