Gilded Plum Poster

A plum branch crosses a gold-leaf ground, its white blossoms open along dark, deliberately crooked wood. The gold is laid in squares, so the background keeps the faint grid of leaf applied by hand, and the light moves across it rather than sitting still. Each flower is painted with five rounded petals and a cluster of red stamens, in the Rinpa manner the caption names. The branch enters from the bottom right and leaves at the top, which gives the composition its diagonal. Everything else is left to the gold.

Gold leaf and white blossom make this a warm, calm print for a bedroom wall, particularly above a chest of drawers or beside a window where daylight can move across it. It sits well with cream, clay and pale wood, and it does not fight patterned textiles. A thin oak frame keeps the Japanese register; brass makes more of the gold. Hang it alone rather than in a group, since the branch needs its diagonal to breathe.