Low, basin shaped baskets piled with fruits and flowers were a stock theme among Chinese professional painters. This theme was picked up by the Japanese literati artist Yanagisawa Kien in the mid-18th century who painted several hanging scrolls featuring precisely rendered baskets with colorful, carefully described flowers and fruit. Perhaps because of this pictorial tradition, low baskets such as this became popular for floral displays at sencha gatherings. This basket would have been used for such a display.