The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 20, 2025

Pair of two horizontal, six-paneled screens with gilded backgrounds across which birds walk and flap their wings in front of green forest shrubbery. The upper screen features two phoenixes. The lower screen features a peafowl in the shrubbery and a peacock just outside, flapping its wings and looking back at the peafowl. Floral patterns rim both screens.

Peafowl and Phoenixes

late 1500s

attributed to Tosa Mitsuyoshi

(Japanese, 1539–1613)
Japan, Momoyama period (1573–1615)
Pair of six-panel screens; ink, color, and gold on gilded paper
Overall: 173.1 x 374.4 cm (68 1/8 x 147 3/8 in.); Overall: 175.9 x 377.2 cm (69 1/4 x 148 1/2 in.)
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1986.2
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Members of the Tosa studio of painters once served as heads of the imperial painting bureau.

Description

Phoenixes are fantastical birds said to inhabit paulownia trees and eat bamboo, and to celebrate virtuous rulers. Peafowl are birds that amuse themselves in the lake of the Buddha Amida’s Pure Land, a paradise where many once hoped to find themselves after death. Both birds appeared on Japanese textiles or paintings in the 1500s and 1600s, used in official ceremonies centered around emperors.
  • ?–1986
    (Leighton R. Longhi Inc., New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    1986–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1986.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 74, no. 2 (February 1987): 38–79. Reproduced: p. 49; Mentioned: p. 75, no. 206 www.jstor.org
    Cunningham, Michael R. The Triumph of Japanese Style: 16th-Century Art in Japan. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Published by the Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with the Indiana University Press, 1991. Reproduced: pp. 30-31
    Cunningham, Michael R. Masterworks of Asian art. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1998. Reproduced: p. 208 - 211
    Cleveland Museum of Art, and Michael R. Cunningham. Unfolding Beauty: Japanese Screens from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001. Reproduced: pp. 20-21
    Longhi, Leighton R. Leighton R. Longhi: Forty-Five Years in Asian Art. [New York, N.Y.]: Leighton R. Longhi, 2019. Reproduced: p. 86-87, fig. 68
  • Japanese Gallery 235 Rotation - January-July 2017. The Cleveland Museum of Art (January 9-July 10, 2017).
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 121); July 13 - November 10, 2004.
    Unfolding Beauty: Japanese Screens from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 15-September 16, 2001).
    The Triumph of Japanese Style: 16th Century Art in Japan. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 19-December 1, 1991).
    Autumn Grasses: Arts of the Momoyama Period (1573-1615). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 4-December 11, 1988).
    Byobu: The Art of the Japanese Screen. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 8, 1987-January 10, 1988).
    Year in Review for 1986. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 4-March 15, 1987).
  • {{cite web|title=Peafowl and Phoenixes|url=false|author=Tosa Mitsuyoshi|year=late 1500s|access-date=20 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1986.2