Sake Ewer with a design of flowers

This is a fragment from a booklet transcribing poems of four seasons from the anthology Kokin-wakashū. It is elegant and noble in calligraphic style and spontaneous and rhythmical in brushwork. Sakuma Masakatsu (1570-1642 ), a retired warrior and tea master, treasured the fragments (one of which is shown here) and named them after his teahouse. It is among the three best sets of shikishi calligraphy of the Heian period, other two being Tsugi-shikishi and Masu-shikishi.