Overview

According to ancient Chinese legend, Mount Penglai (J., Hôrai) was a utopia where immortals dwell, in the middle of the eastern seas. The elixir of eternal youth and immortality can be found there; pines, bamboo, and plum trees grow in profusion; cranes fly gracefully in the sky and tortoises gently swim in the sea. In Japan, belief in these immortals appeared around the time of the Ritsuryô period (when the early Japanese legal codes came into place from the early 7th through early 10th centuries), but Penglai did not occur as a design motif in the applied arts until the latter half of the Heian period (794-1185). This desire for longevity was frequently employed as a decorative motif on mirrors used in daily life, and mirror designs deriving from the Penglai motif persisted until the end of the early Modern period (1593-1868).

Compositions featuring pine trees flourishing on jutting rocks in the upper right with cranes sweeping the skies above rough breakers to the left became standardized around the first half of the 13th century. On this mirror, the tortoise-shaped knob appears rather stylized, but the depiction of the rocky promontory is archaic, and the flying crane projecting from the inner band into the outer band is very close in composition to that on Mirror with Hôrai (Penglai) Motif (EK17-52), and may be dated no earlier than the later 13th century.