Act Four: Enya Hangan's Castle from the play Chushingura (Treasury of the Forty-seven Loyal Retainers)

Three figures in an interior gather around a large white vase of pink and coral flowering branches set on a red-bordered mat: a kneeling figure in a pink-and-gray patterned robe leans toward the blossoms, while two standing figures in patterned kimono (one gray-and-pink, one with an orange under-robe and gray floral outer robe) look on. Behind them a sliding screen or panel painted with a flowering plum branch on a blue dotted ground fills the left side, with a titled cartouche in the upper left and a small round orange lidded vessel on a shelf at right. The palette is soft and muted — sage green flooring, dove grays, pale pink and coral, and pale blue — giving the scene a quiet, domestic mood. Katsukawa Shun'ei, 1790, color woodblock print (koban), Act Four: Enya Hangan's Castle, from the series Chushingura (Treasury of the Forty-seven Loyal Retainers).