Phoenix in Flight over a Paulownia Tree (Hō kiri ni mau)

This color woodblock kachō-ga (bird-and-flower print) by Utagawa Kunitsuna I, held by the British Museum (registration number 1907,0531,0.525), depicts a phoenix in flight over a kiri (paulownia) tree. The British Museum catalogues the work under the kachō-ga heading, signaling its place within the bird-and-flower print tradition that ran parallel to figurative [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) from the late eighteenth century onward. As with the related Phoenix and Paulownia composition held by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the subject carries the classical Chinese-derived symbolism in which the phoenix appears only at moments of sage rulership and nests exclusively in the paulownia tree.