The [`matplotlib.pyplot.figure`][1] instance.

        [1]: http://matplotlib.org/api/figure_api.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure

def figure(self):
        """
        The [`matplotlib.pyplot.figure`][1] instance.

        [1]: http://matplotlib.org/api/figure_api.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure
        """
        if not hasattr(self, '_figure'): self._figure = matplotlib.pyplot.figure()
        return self._figure