Artwork story
About Old Plum
The artist and artwork
Kano Sansetsu painted Old Plum in 1646 across four sliding-door panels, or fusuma, using ink, color, and gold leaf on paper. Sansetsu led the Kyoto branch of the Kano school after training with, and becoming the son-in-law of, Kano Sanraku. The image was also architecture: its doors divided rooms in an abbot's residence at Tenshō'in, a subtemple of Myōshinji in Kyoto, and the composition unfolds from right to left.
The world around it
Old Plum was created early in the Edo period, after the Tokugawa shogunate consolidated authority following generations of war. The Kano school's main branch moved from Kyoto to Edo to serve the shogunate, while Sansetsu remained in Kyoto. His patron, daimyo Matsudaira Tadahiro, founded Tenshō'in as a mortuary temple for his father, a grandson of the first Tokugawa shogun. Samurai authority, Zen patronage, family workshops, and architecture therefore meet in these doors.
A detail to notice
Plum can sprout from old wood, making it an emblem of resilience and renewal. Sansetsu turns that idea into motion: the trunk rises from jagged rocks, buckles into a loop, and crosses gold-leaf sheets while white blossoms open on wiry branches. Pink plum at right and azaleas at left once connected to missing panels, so the room progressed from early spring toward summer. A later fire left only four panels; this old tree has literally endured.
Look closer: materials, scale, and subjects
The recorded object is door panels made in Four sliding-door panels (fusuma); ink, color, gold, and gold leaf on paper and held in the Asian Art department.
Recorded dimensions include Overall (of all four panels): 68 3/4 x 191 1/8 in. (174.6 x 485.5 cm); Overall (a): 68 3/8 x 47 5/8 in. (173.7 x 121 cm); Overall (b): 68 3/8 x 48 3/4 in. (173.7 x 123.8 cm); Overall (c): 68 1/2 x 47 3/4 in. (174 x 121.3 cm); Overall (d): 68 1/2 x 47 3/4 in. (174 x 121.3 cm).
Subject terms include Flowers and Trees. Treat them as guideposts, not a complete interpretation.
Collection history and public-domain source
The collection credit line is The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G. C. Packard, and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975.
The individual artwork page and official image were verified as Public Domain on 2026-08-23.
No Context Gallery independently uses the public-domain image. The source museum has not endorsed, sponsored, or affiliated itself with these products.
Research sources
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