Empress Jingu (left), and Her Minister Takenouchi no Sukune (right)

This koban (small-format) color woodblock print in the Art Institute of Chicago, dated to the late 1780s, demonstrates Shun'ei's range beyond the immediate world of kabuki. Empress Jingū, the semi-legendary regent of the third or fourth century said to have led a campaign to conquer the Korean kingdoms, is here paired with her minister Takenouchi no Sukune, the longevity-defying retainer who became a stock figure of Japanese historical iconography. The koban format — a small-scale print — was used for series of historical or legendary figures aimed at a particular kind of literate, history-minded audience. Shun'ei's treatment is appropriately stately: the empress holds her ceremonial bearing, the minister stands in attendance, and both figures are rendered with the firm Katsukawa-school outlining that suited their archaic-heroic register. The print also reflects the late-eighteenth-century interest in Japanese antiquity, when antiquarian scholarship and popular print culture together promoted images of legendary rulers and warriors as cultural icons.