Chinese Beauty Beside a Plum Tree, leaf from the album “A Contest of Beauties from the Near and Distant Past” (Chūko shomeika bijin kurabe)

This plum-blossom painting is an expressive combination of balanced contrasts: soft, rounded plum blossoms and buds delicately rest on sharp branches that burst in every direction;...

Because it blooms in February, before donning its leaves, the Chinese flowering plum (Prunus mume) is associated with winter and is regarded as a symbol of strength in the face of ...

Because it blooms in winter, even before it dons its leaves and while snow and ice still cover the ground, the Chinese flowering plum (Prunus mume) became a symbol of purity and of...

The text inscribed on this album leaf is a poem on plum blossoms; the poem is inscribed in seven columns, the columns varying in placement, in numbers of characters, and thus in le...

Sugawara Michizane (845-903) was a brilliant Chinese literary scholar and statesman during Japan's Heian period (794-1185) who rose quickly to high courtly rank but was unjustly ex...