Woman reading the Akashi chapter of The Tale of Genji

This large, hand-colored print is a mitate, a contemporary reworking of a classic literary theme, sometimes described as a parody. A beauty sits before a writing table with a book titled “Akashi” in one hand. Both pose and title refer to the eleventh-century novel The Tale of Genji and its author, Murasaki Shikibu, who is  said to have been inspired to write the book’s thirteenth chapter, titled “Akashi,” while gazing at a full moon at Ishiyamadera Temple, located near Lake Biwa. Paintings of Murasaki often show her in wide-sleeved court-style robes, posed before her desk with a moon visible outside, but the print takes liberties with that iconography: instead of the moon there is a round stone basin full of water, and both the narrow sleeve openings on the woman’s outer robe (uchikake) and the decorative comb in her hair distinguish her as a contemporary beauty of the Edo period. Arranged behind her are an incense burner in the shape of a lion, a cloth-wrapped article (possibly an incense container), and a stack of volumes labeled “Genji.” The paper on the desk before her is inscribed with the last two lines of a waka poem by Koshikibu Naishi, another celebrated Heian period poet: “not yet have I trod there, nor letter seen, from Amanohashidate” (mada fumi mo mizu Amanohashidate).

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston owns a version of this print that is signed Torii Kiyomasu I with the seal of publisher Igaya Kan’emon. Other variations between the two prints suggest that the Grabhorn version may be a somewhat later edition of Kiyomasu’s design, from which the signature and other marks were removed.