Lady Rokujo

A second treatment of the Lady Rokujo subject, indicating that Shusui returned to this Tale of Genji figure more than once — a pattern consistent with twentieth-century woodblock artists who produced variant compositions of the same literary subject for different publishers, exhibition contexts, or print runs. The two versions may differ in scale ([oban](/glossary/oban) versus [chuban](/glossary/chuban) format), in the moment of the narrative depicted (the courtly Rokujo versus the spirit-possessed Rokujo of the Aoi episode), or in palette and compositional framing. Producing variant prints of a single subject was a common practice within [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) and [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) circles, where artists explored alternative carving and printing solutions for an established design. The print is again executed in mokuhanga on [washi](/glossary/washi), with its facial features and costume patterning carried by separate keyblock and color blocks. Without comparison to the first version or access to publisher records, the precise relationship between the two Lady Rokujo prints — sequential, alternative, or revised — cannot be specified, but their existence points to sustained artistic interest in this character within Shusui's working practice.