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 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.

Kunitsuna's handling of the subject reflects the late-Edo refinement of kachō-ga technique, in which the simplified line work of earlier Utagawa floral prints was joined to richer color printing — including bokashi (graded ink wash), karazuri (blind-printed embossing), and metallic pigments — to produce prestige household pieces. The British Museum's impression complements the FAMSF Phoenix and Paulownia in showing the range of variations on the phoenix-paulownia theme that Kunitsuna produced for the late-Edo market, where auspicious classical symbols remained valued by urban patrons.

The museum's date attribution simply registers the artist's lifespan, 1805-1868, suggesting that no specific publication date can be assigned from the print's surface markings. The kachō-ga were less frequently dated than yakusha-e or musha-e because they belonged to a more decorative category that publishers refreshed continually rather than tying to particular theatrical seasons or current events; the lack of a sharper date is itself a documentary trace of the genre's commercial conventions.