# Beauty with Fireflies

- By: Kubo Shunman (Japanese, 1757–1820)
- Date: early 1800s
- Medium: Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk (ivory roller ends)
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: Mounted: 181.5 x 45.6 cm (71 7/16 x 17 15/16 in.); Painting: 95.6 x 33.2 cm (37 5/8 x 13 1/16 in.)
- Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
- Credit line: Gift of the Kelvin Smith Family
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/2015.85)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2015.85/2015.85_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

A young woman has passed beneath an aged willow tree as she strolls along a riverbank carrying a cage full of fireflies. The painting is a copy after Kubo Shunman, best known as a composer of witty verses in 31-syllables (kyōka) and designer of limited edition prints called surimono. Shunman was active during the mature era of ukiyo-e production, and his more formal paintings most often took as their subjects beautiful Chinese or Japanese women. Here, his imitator commemorates one of summer's most delightful evening pastimes, the observation of the flickering lights of the firefly. The woman is presented in a ubiquitous summer setting, a refreshingly cool and breezy riverbank in earshot of rustling willow leaves.