Calligraphy in six characters, In the red furnace, one snowflake

The phrase “Above the red hearth, one flake of snow” (Koro jo itten no yuki) is an old Chinese saying used in the training of Zen Buddhist monks. It comes from the Chinese Chan (Zen) text The Blue Cliff Record (Chinese: Biyan lu, Japanese: Hekiganroku). The phrase—which is frequently used in the winter tearoom—suggests that an enlightened person is like a snowflake dancing above red-hot embers, unattached to illusions, vanishing instantly without a trace.

The calligraphy on this scroll is attributed to Matsudaira Sadanobu, lord of the Shirakawa domain. A daimyo lord of the mid-Edo period and a blood relation of the Tokugawa shoguns, Sadanobu was well known for his financial reforms. The name Shirakawa Rakuo (“old man of leisure”) was a moniker adopted after he retired, which helps us date this scroll.