Overview

The bronze of this mirror is dark brown, and its reflective face is plated with tin. The chrysanthemum-shaped knob surround has been deformed by traces of the rod support used to create the hole in the knob. A roughened surface and a spot where the pattern is indistinct-on the inner side of the straight, narrow rim (on the lower right of the image)-resulted from flaws in the casting process. The earliest appearance of chrysanthemum motifs took the same form as on this mirror, in which the flowers are distributed around the knob. This type of spatial composition, however, with a pair of birds flying in the same direction, seen in elevation, is typical of a group of Chinese Song-style (960-1279) mirrors excavated from a sutra mound at Tado Shrine in Mie Prefecture. The execution of the chrysanthemum leaves in outline is also common to these examples, and probably indicates a production date of early to mid-12th century. The composition includes chrysanthemums and butterflies, a noteworthy style also for the history of painting in Japan.