Sei Shonagon, from the illustrated book "Collection of Pictures of Beauties (Bijin e-zukushi)"

This hand-colored double-page illustration in the Art Institute of Chicago, cut from the circa 1683 illustrated book Collection of Pictures of Beauties (Bijin e-zukushi), depicts Sei Shonagon, the celebrated court lady of the late tenth and early eleventh centuries whose Pillow Book remains one of the foundational works of Japanese literature. Moronobu's interest in pairing contemporary [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) with classical female literary figures established a recurring strategy in [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e), where the women of Heian aristocracy were periodically reimagined in the visual language of Edo. The double-page composition allowed Moronobu to set Sei Shonagon in a fully realized interior or garden setting, with the kind of elaborate architectural and textile detail that his ehon were celebrated for. The hand-coloring, likely added after the initial sumizuri-e printing using tan, mineral pigments, and brushed washes, suggests that this sheet was extracted from its book at a later date, a common nineteenth-century practice for highly prized Moronobu illustrations. The work documents the high regard in which Moronobu's book illustrations were held by later collectors and helps reconstruct what was once a complete ehon devoted to female beauty across history and station.