women; courtesans; monks; men (male humans); children (people by age group); kimonos; hair ornaments; trees
A famous courtesan of Sakai took the name "Jigoku," meaning "hell," and had images of hell displayed on her robes and on the clothes of her attendants. She exchanged poems with the Zen monk Ikkyu (1394-1481), who frequented brothels as part of his...
men (male humans); women; kimonos; books; axes (tools)
According the Konjaku monogatari, a devout young woman valued all sentient beings, and bought some live crabs at a market to set them free. Later when her father saw a snake about to eat a frog, he asked the snake to give up his meal in return for...
According to the Heike monogatari Lady Senju, a personal attendant of Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147-1199) was asked by him to sing and dance for Taira no Shigehira (1156-1185), a captured enemy of the imperial family. Shigehira, in turn, played the...
According to the Record of Ancient Matters / Kojiki, written about 712, Susano, the brother of the sun goddess Amaterasu, is expelled from the realm of gods and descends to the area called Izumo, where he discovered an old couple sheltering their...
After the Battle of Sekigahara, Tokugawa Ieyasu banished Sanada Masayuki (1544-1608) and his son Yukimura (1570-1615), Nobuyuki's younger brother, to Mt. Kudo in Kii Province, far from their home in Shinano Province. When Yukimura's wife came to...
Although a trusted retainer of the warlord Oda Nobunaga (1510-1551), Akechi Mitsuhide (1528-1582) was enraged when Nobunaga murdered his mother. Mitsuhide attacked Nobunaga at the Kyoto temple of Honno-ji, setting it afire. Nobunaga reportedly...
Although Lady Matsushima was an attendant of the shogun Minamoto no Sanetomo (1192-1219), Hojo Tomotoki (1193-1245), second son of the regent Hojo Yoshitoki, frequently sent her love letters, even though she was deeply in love with Wada Asahina...
Beneath drying autumn grasses, the aged Komachi sits gazing at the moon. Ono no Komachi was a beautiful, intelligent woman and one of the most accomplished early court poets. As a young woman she was pursued by many suitors, most of whom she...
Beyond the bamboo lattice of a folding screen sit three women: the flute / yokobue player (in nearly full view) accompanies shamisen and koto musicians (who are hidden by the partition). The delicate wave patterns in silver on the screen panels...
Emperor Nintoku (reigning 313-399 according to the Nihon Shoki) noticed throughout his realm an absence of smoke from kitchen fires (a sign of widespread poverty), and so he exempted the people from mandatory labor services for three years. This...
women; men (male humans); kimonos; fans (costume accessories); snow (precipitation); trees; flowers (plants); hats; hair ornaments; hairstyles; built works
In 1338 the daughter of the governor of Iga Province went with her mother to the imperial palace in Kyoto, accompanied by the courtier Hino Suketoshi. One evening at a banquet for moon viewing, Suketoshi mistook Lady Nii's wine cup for his own, and...
women; children (people by age group); men (male humans); kimonos; lanterns (lighting devices); fusuma; interior spaces
In the city of Sendai, several assassination attempts were made to overthrow the Date family. The print depicts a masked assassin being overpowered by a family retainer while the young heir is shielded by his nursemaid during an attack in the...
Kibi no Makibi (695?-775) was sent to study in China in 717, and returned to Japan 19 years later to be the imperial adviser to Princess (and later Empress) Koken (reign 749-758). While abroad he was often homesick, especially when he saw the moon...
women; men (male humans); warriors; armor (protective wear); trees; kimonos; bodies of water; fans (costume accessories)
Lady Iga was in service to Emperor GoDaigo (1288-1339), who was exiled to the mountains of Yoshino where he established an alternative imperial court. His palace there was haunted by the ghost of Sasaki Kiyotada, who had been executed after poorly...
men (male humans); women; children (people by age group); swords; flowers (plants); kimonos; lamps (lighting devices)
Minamoto no Mitsunaga sent his son Bijomaru to a temple to study and become a priest, but Bijomaru practiced martial arts instead. His father was angry and ordered his chief retainer Nakamitsu to kill Bijomaru. Nakamitsu could not bring himself to...
men (male humans); women; trees; kimonos; swimming
Oai no kata was born in Okazaki and was both beautiful and strong, although of low social status. One day while swimming in a river, a young man tried to bother her, but she quickly defeated him. According to the cartouche, even the shogun Tokugawa...
men (male humans); women; kimonos; trees; palanquins; Built complexes and districts
Okubo Hikozaemon Tadanori (1560-1639), a trusted advisor to Tokugawa Ieyasu, thought his neighbors had dishonored a pine tree given him by Ieyasu, and shot at them with his matchlock.
On a ribbon floating above a globe, the series title is presented in large characters / kanji, with the publisher's name on the right and the artist's name on the left. The sphere has lines suggesting longitude and latitude divisions, resembling a...
warriors; women; men (male humans); boats; halberds; kimonos; banners
Osumi no kata was the daughter of the warrior Honda Tadakatsu (1548-1618), a close Tokugawa ally. She was married to Sanada Nobuyuki (1566-1658), who as a boy had been sent by his father to be a Tokugawa hostage. In 1600 Nobuyuki's father and...
