Two Chinese Women Examining Thread and a Spider’s Web in a Box, from the series "Diptych for the Drum Group"

This unusual [shikishiban](/glossary/shikishiban) [surimono](/glossary/surimono) [diptych](/glossary/diptych) depicts two Chinese women examining thread and a spider's web preserved in a box, a subject drawn from Chinese popular culture surrounding the Tanabata festival and the Qixi tradition of weaving and stargazing on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. Held by the Art Institute of Chicago and dated to around 1824, the diptych was commissioned by the Drum Group, one of the smaller kyoka circles for which Gakutei produced surimono in the 1820s. The composition is unusual within his oeuvre both for its diptych format and for its sustained engagement with Chinese subject matter rendered in detailed costume study, a strand of his practice that connects to the broader fashion among kyoka poets for Sinophile literary allusion. Metallic pigments accent the women's robes and the lacquered box that contains the web, transforming what could have been a simple genre scene into a connoisseur's object dense with symbolic association.