Butterfly on the flowers (Hana no cho), by Utagawa Kunisada

An image of Butterfly on the flowers (Hana no chô). Utagawa Kunisada (1786-1864). Colour print from woodblocks, with metallic pigment, blind embossing (karazuri), and burnishing (tsuyazuri) on the black mirror and stand. Shikishiban format surimono. Circa 1823-1825. The text of the letter may be the lyric to a popular song by a poet using the name Sono no Kochô ('Butterfly in the garden'), which appears on the print next to a red butterfly and blossom seal (repeated on the hairpin and kimono design).

Terms of use

The low-resolution images published on this Website are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY-NC-ND). For more details: Fitzwilliam Terms of Use

This licence does not include any images of works that are still in copyright. Artistic copyright extends from the life of the artist to 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the artist died.

Download this image

For further information on use of images or to license a high resolution version, please contact our image library who can discuss terms and fees.

Butterfly on the flowers (Hana no chô). Utagawa Kunisada (1786-1864). Colour print from woodblocks, with metallic pigment, blind embossing (karazuri), and burnishing (tsuyazuri) on the black mirror and stand. Shikishiban format surimono. Circa 1823-1825. The text of the letter may be the lyric to a popular song by a poet using the name Sono no Kochô ('Butterfly in the garden'), which appears on the print next to a red butterfly and blossom seal (repeated on the hairpin and kimono design).

Image data

Accession Number: P.494-1937
Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Aperture: f/16.0
Focal length: 80
Camera: Hasselblad H3DII-31
Photographer name: Michael Jones
Image height: 1025 pixels
Image width: 895 pixels
Processed with: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.0 (Windows)
Filesize: 911.72kB
Exposure time: 1/125
ISO Speed: 100
Fnumber: 16/1
Captured: 2013:08:16 12:07:21

Key words

19th Century beauty blossom butterflies butterfly circular clothes clothing colour printing costume courtesan Edo Period fashion female Fitz_PDP floral flowers fruits geigi geiko geisha hair hairstyle Japan Japanese kanzashi hairpin letters love letter maiko plum blossom plum tree plums print reader reading round scroll Shikishiban surimono tree blossom tsuyazuri ukiyo-e Utagawa Kunisada window woman woodblock woodcut young

Citation for print

This page can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:


            The Fitzwilliam Museum (2025)
            "Butterfly on the flowers (Hana no cho), by Utagawa Kunisada"
            Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-218601 Accessed: 2025-12-13 17:18:28

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this page on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:


            {{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-218601
            |title=Butterfly on the flowers (Hana no cho), by Utagawa Kunisada
            |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2025-12-13 17:18:28|publisher=The
            University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:

https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/api/v1/images/media-218601

Bootstrap HTML code for reuse

To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:

<div class="text-center">
    <figure class="figure">
        <img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/pdp/pdp82/p_494_1937_1_201308_mfj22_dc2.jpg"
        alt="Hana no chô"
        class="img-fluid" />
        <figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Butterfly on the flowers (Hana no cho), by Utagawa Kunisada</figcaption>
    </figure>
</div>