Woman with fan and cricket cage

A woman with a fan and a cricket cage — a summer composition pairing two conventional accessories of the Japanese warm season, the fan for cooling and the cricket cage for its musical occupant. Crickets were prized in Japan for their song, and the practice of keeping pet crickets in small cages extended back through centuries of Japanese and Chinese aesthetic practice. Goyo's bijin with fan and cricket cage participates in this tradition of summer sensory pleasure: the sound of the cricket, the coolness of the fan's breeze, and the warmth of the summer setting all present in a single composed image.