The phoenix together with the dragon, the qilin, and the tortoise are the four auspicious beasts in Chinese mythology. The right half of this folding screen depicts a pair of phoenixes and a chick to express affection between parents and children while the left half depicts a male and a female phoenix exchanging glances. The subjects are widely spaced on a golden ground, creating a radiance that is appropriate to the phoenix, which appears when a sage governs the world. This suggests that the folding screen may have been painted for the marriage ceremony of Tokugawa Ietsuna, the fourth shōgun, in July 1657.
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