Hollyhocks

Unknown Japanese Artist

Ink, color, and gold leaf on paper

Metropolitan Museum of Art

This luminous two-panel screen captures a dense thicket of hollyhocks in full bloom, their pale blossoms and deep green foliage rendered against a shimmering field of gold leaf. The composition reflects the Rinpa school's decorative sensibility, where naturalistic botanical detail meets abstract, flattened space to create a sense of opulent stillness. Likely crafted for a refined domestic interior, such screens functioned both as practical room dividers and as seasonal declarations of nature's beauty brought indoors. The interplay of gold ground and organic form gives this work a timeless elegance well suited to a contemplative display space.