Crabapple Blossoms and a Golden Pheasant

The tall format shows a golden pheasant perched on a rock, with crabapple (kaido) branches in bloom behind it. The viewpoint is slightly raised, looking down, and the red-breasted pheasant sits at the center. Pale pink blossoms are scattered along the branch tips.

According to the museum, working from the bottom up, the grass is painted in shades of green, the rock in ink, and the pheasant and crabapple in vivid color, giving depth even within a simple treatment. The contrast of red, blue and yellow in the pheasant's feathers especially tightens the picture.

The signature at the lower right shows that it was painted in An'ei 4 (1775), when Okyo was around 43. The museum describes it as a work of his forties, when he was full of physical and creative energy. Okyo first studied under Ishida Yutei, a painter to the imperial court, and after working on megane-e (peep-show pictures) he brought new life to the Kyoto art world with precise sketching and bold composition.