Shunkei Picture Album (Shunkei gafu)
A Japanese painted album of insects and plants made around 1820 by Mori Shunkei, a painter active 1815 to 1841, likely as a study or pattern book for artists and collectors. Its pictures show grasshoppers, dragonflies, caterpillars, beetles and cicadas set among leaves and flowers on pale paper, painted in soft muted colour with fine linear detail. A designer could take the economical placement of small creatures against open negative space, and the naturalistic colour of the insects, as models for simple botanical and insect motifs.
