Sparrowhawk (Konori taka)

Dated to circa 1716, this vertical o-oban tan-e depicts a sparrowhawk (konori taka), a small raptor prized in Japanese falconry. The print belongs to the body of bird-and-flower (kacho) work that Kiyomasu I produced alongside his theatrical commissions, and it demonstrates how the Torii school's bold drawing idiom translated onto natural-history subject matter. The bird is rendered with the same swelling contour lines used in the school's actor prints, giving the small predator an emphatic visual presence on the tall vertical sheet. Hand-applied tan pigment animates the plumage. Hawks and hawking carried strong samurai-class associations in the Tokugawa period, and prints of falconry subjects appealed both to those steeped in martial culture and to townsmen who admired the iconography from a distance. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this work.