This elegant pair of six-panel folding screens depict flowers and birds of the four seasons. On the right-hand screen (not shown) both white plum blossoms, the harbingers of spring, and the irises of summer are in bloom; nightingales and cuckoos celebrate the two seasons. The left-hand screen (shown here) illustrates autumn and winter, represented, respectively, by hibiscus and bamboo dotted with snow, as well as by a kingfisher and pheasants.

Each screen bears two seals of Kano Sanboku, a student of Kano Sanraku (1559–1635), leader of the Kano school active in Kyoto. This school, known as Kyo Kano (Kyoto Kano), has started to receive attention from scholars only recently. It developed a distinct style of its own, easily discernible from that of the Edo (modern Tokyo) branch of the Kano school, which prospered as the official painters to the shoguns.

Little is known about the life of Sanboku, and only two dated works—from 1664 and 1706—have come to light. This pair of screens will help us understand the artistic development of Kyo Kano works in the second half of the seventeenth century.