Japanese

Chrysanthemum sprays and paulownia motifs are here embroidered on a ground of tortoise-shell and plum patternin gold applique wiht a crackled ice and plum blossom pattern in the weave.

The design combines motifs associated with the Heian period (784-1191) and calls to midn classical verses using chrysanthemum imagery.

oto ni nomi
kiku no shiratsuyu
yoru wa okite
hiru wa omoi ni
aezu kenubeshi

Though I but know you
through others, love has made me
like chrysanthemum dew,
rising by night and by day
fading into nothingness.

Monk Sosei, Kokin Wakashu, no 470. Translation by Helen Craig McCullough, Kokin Wakashu (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985) p. 111.