A solitary woman lingers for a few moments beneath an aged plum tree, above whose branches hangs a new crescent moon. Beside the plum stands an old pine, its heavy trunk feathered with finely drawn stalks of bamboo. The plum, pine, and bamboo are often referred to together as the "three friends of winter," and indeed this painting is redolent of the lonesome melancholia brought on by the chilling cold of the year's end.