Princess Akashi

The title references Akashi no Kimi, the noblewoman from Murasaki Shikibu's eleventh-century Tale of Genji who becomes consort to Hikaru Genji during his exile on the Suma-Akashi coast. Prints treating Genji subjects typically draw on the Genji-e tradition, in which scenes are identified by chapter emblems and figures rendered in the courtly hikime-kagibana convention—a single horizontal stroke for the eye, a hooked line for the nose. A figural treatment of this subject would depart from the landscape and [kacho-e](/glossary/kacho-e) work more commonly associated with prints bearing the Taki Shusui signature, suggesting either a literary commission or an excursion into [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) adjacent imagery. Twentieth-century printmakers handling classical literary themes often combined flat color fields with [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradation in the background to evoke the misty atmosphere of Heian-era painting, and used embossing ([karazuri](/glossary/karazuri)) to suggest brocade patterning on robes. Given the documentary gaps around Shusui's career—no confirmed dates, publisher, or carver attributions—dating and contextualizing this print within a defined series requires direct examination of the sheet for seals, margin inscriptions, or block-cutter marks.