A beauty playing koto

古山師政筆 琴を弾く美人図
Attended by a female servant, a young woman plays a Japanese zither (koto) by the light of a full moon. Arranged around the women are various accoutrements of upper-class daily life: elegant lacquered trays with smoking utensils and incense, a lampstand, and rolled bamboo blinds. This work belongs to a genre popular in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in which women in contemporary fashions are shown engaging in elegant pastimes. Here the setting recalls an aristocratic villa, while seasonal elements of a full moon and red maple tree, both associated with autumn, call to mind the traditions of classical poetry.
Furuyama Moromasa seems to have been an artist of distinction who painted and designed woodblock prints, mostly focused on the pleasure quarter. His works are now rare.