Yokei Tsukuri Niwa no Zu

Dated 1695 and held in the Art Institute of Chicago, Yokei Tsukuri Niwa no Zu is a single-volume woodblock-printed book that addresses the design and construction of recreational gardens, a subject of intense interest to the Edo middle and upper classes. The title translates roughly as illustrations of leisure-made gardens, and the book sits within the broader tradition of practical and instructional ehon that Moronobu helped develop alongside his more purely aesthetic books. By the late seventeenth century, garden design had become a major preoccupation of the warrior elite and the prosperous merchant class, and the demand for illustrated garden manuals and pattern books was strong. The book's appearance in 1695, just after Moronobu's death in 1694, suggests it may have been a posthumous publication completed by his school or perhaps issued shortly before his death, depending on the precise dating of the blocks. Printed in sumizuri-e, the book uses single-block black ink to render garden compositions, with stones, water features, plantings, and architectural pavilions all described in Moronobu's distinctive linear style. The work documents the breadth of Moronobu's engagement with Edo material culture and the wide range of practical and aesthetic subjects that his ehon addressed.