Flowering Tree at a Temple

Flowering Tree at a Temple is a color woodblock print by Kawabata Gyokushō, dated about 1880-1890, held by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (accession RP-P-1961-121) as part of the same thirty-nine-print octagonal album donated by Mrs. L.J. Boddaert in 1961. The print measures 22.3 by 28.7 cm and depicts a flowering tree at a temple gate — one of the long-standing motifs of Japanese poetic and painting tradition, charged with associations of seasonal transience, religious devotion, and the famous "cherry blossom and temple" pairings that recur throughout Heian and Edo poetry. Gyokushō's drawing combines the close attention to branch and blossom that his Maruyama-school training under Nakajima Raishō demanded with the asymmetric, atmospheric composition typical of late Edo and Meiji decorative prints. The octagonal frame, which gives the print its distinctive shape, was a popular format in Meiji-period album publishing, allowing for compositional experimentation while signaling the album's character as a deluxe collector's object rather than a single-sheet nishiki-e for the popular market. The Rijksmuseum copy is one of the few Gyokushō prints accessible at full resolution through a European museum's open-access program.