Java Sparrow and Branch of Plum (Oriental Art) - Koyo - Framed Plate - 12"H x 16"W

Java Sparrow and Branch of Plum (Oriental Art) - Koyo - Framed Plate - 12"H x 16"W

The Java sparrow (Lonchura oryzivora), also known as Java finch, Java rice sparrow or Java rice bird, is a small passerine bird. This estrildid finch is a resident breeding bird in Indonesia.

The Java sparrow has been a popular cage bird in Asia for centuries, first in Ming Dynasty China and then in Japan from the 17th century, frequently appearing in Japanese paintings and prints. Meiji-era writer Natsume Sōseki wrote an essay about his pet Java sparrow.

A plum is a fruit of the subgenus Prunus of the genus Prunus.

Plums may have been one of the first fruits domesticated by humans. Three of the most abundant cultivars are not found in the wild, only around human settlements

The fruit Prunus armeniaca gained its name from the beliefs of Pliny the Elder, who maintained the apricot was a kind of a plum, and had originally come from Armenia. This is supported a 6,000-year-old apricot pit found in an archaeological site near Yerevan. However Apricots were cultivated in Mesopotamia, and it was known as armanu in the Akkadian language, but this did not refer to Armenia as that is not the name by which that geographic region was known in the Akkadian language. It is likely that Pliny's explanation is a folk etymology based on the similarity between the Mesopotamian name for the fruit and the Latin name for Armenia.