Watanabe no Tsuna receiving the sign post for Rashomon Gate from Minamoto no Yorimitsu

This [surimono](/glossary/surimono) — a privately commissioned color woodblock print in deluxe technique — from the Art Institute of Chicago shows Shun'ei working in his most refined register. The subject is drawn from the famous medieval cycle of stories around Minamoto no Yorimitsu (Raikō), the tenth-century warrior whose retainers, the so-called Four Heavenly Kings of Raikō, included the celebrated demon-slayer Watanabe no Tsuna. The scene depicts Yorimitsu handing Tsuna the sign post (a kind of placard or token) before Tsuna's legendary battle with the demon of Rashōmon Gate, an episode in which Tsuna severed the monster's arm. Surimono were not commercial prints but luxury items produced for kyōka poetry circles, with elaborate use of metallic pigments, blind embossing, and refined design. The medium suited Shun'ei's careful draftsmanship and the literary, slightly antiquarian taste of his clientele, who would have appreciated both the historical reference and the technical bravado. The print represents a side of Shun'ei's career less familiar than his theater work — the artist as collaborator with poets and connoisseurs, producing intimate, allusive images for private audiences rather than the broad kabuki public.