The Tale of Sagoromo, from the series "Ten Courtly Tales for the Honcho Circle (Honchoren monogatari juban)"

From the Honchoren monogatari juban, a [surimono](/glossary/surimono) series of ten classical Japanese tales commissioned by the Honcho poetry circle, this design draws on the Sagoromo monogatari, the eleventh-century Heian romance attributed to Senji and celebrated alongside the Tale of Genji as a masterpiece of classical fiction. Gakutei's Honchoren commissions translated the great works of the courtly literary canon into intimate [shikishiban](/glossary/shikishiban) surimono format, allowing kyoka poets to inscribe their verses in dialogue with motifs drawn from the most prestigious texts in Japanese letters. Held by the Art Institute of Chicago and dated to around 1820, the print embodies the dense literary culture of late-Edo Edo, where [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) designers worked closely with poetry circles to layer image, calligraphy, and classical allusion into compact compositions. The metallic-pigment surface, careful color registration, and quiet figural drawing all mark the print as a product of the surimono tradition at its most ambitious, when no expense was spared in honoring the textual sources that gave the series its identity.