The upper sections depict figures in a landscape, including a charming image of a laden water buffalo being encouraged to cross a bridge.
These are set above a broad band of karakusa scroll, 8.3cm high..
Karakusa is the term for a design inspired by patterns found in floral tendrils and the scrolling foliage of vines and plants.
The form, which entered Japan, with Buddhist art, during the Nara period (710-794), gradually incorporated traditional Japanese symbolic floral subjects such as pine, bamboo, plum, wisteria, pawlownia and camellia.
