A Mirror on a Stand Suggesting the Autumnal Moon (Kyodai no shugetsu), from the series "Eight Scenes of the Parlor (Zashiki hakkei)"
- Date:
- c. 1777
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print; chuban
- Source:
- Art Institute of Chicago
A Mirror on a Stand Suggesting the Autumnal Moon (Kyōdai no shūgetsu), from the series Eight Scenes of the Parlor (Zashiki hakkei), is a color woodblock print designed by Torii Kiyonaga in 1772. The series, originally innovated by Suzuki Harunobu and continued by his successors, transplants the classical eight views of the Xiao and Xiang rivers from Chinese landscape poetry to the intimate parlor of an Edo woman. Each external scene—Autumn Moon, Evening Snow, Returning Sails—is replaced by a small domestic object: here, a freestanding mirror on its lacquered stand stands in for the bright full moon of mid-autumn. As a young designer within the Torii school of woodblock artists, Kiyonaga participates in a fashion of mitate (parodic substitution) that was central to refined Edo print culture, treating the parlor itself as a small landscape of moods and seasons. The print typically frames a young woman beside her mirror, her gesture either inspecting her reflection or arranging her hair, with the round mirror echoing the moon both visually and symbolically. The Art Institute of Chicago, which holds this impression, dates the sheet to the start of Kiyonaga's mature work in Edo [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga). The palette is delicate, with muted blues, warm pinks, and patterned textiles set against the open paper of the room. For modern viewers, the print is a beautifully compressed example of how Edo [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) learned to make poetry of domestic still life by mapping classical references onto the everyday objects of urban women's interior lives.
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A Mirror on a Stand Suggesting the Autumnal Moon (Kyodai no shugetsu), from the series "Eight Scenes of the Parlor (Zashiki hakkei)" was created by Torii Kiyonaga (鳥居清長) in c. 1777.
A Mirror on a Stand Suggesting the Autumnal Moon (Kyodai no shugetsu), from the series "Eight Scenes of the Parlor (Zashiki hakkei)" depicts moonlight and autumn foliage.