Album of Illustrations for the Tale of Genji
Unknown Artist
1600s
Medium
Double-sided accordion-style album of 17 leaves; ink, light color, and gold on paper
Dimensions
painting only: 17 × 20.6 cm · each leaf: 26.3 × 22 cm
Classification
Bound Volume
Department
Japanese Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Vera Sterne in memory of her husband, Maurice Sterne
Accession Number
1961.202
About this artwork
This album contains illustrations for the classic literary work the Tale of Genji, authored in the 1000s by Murasaki Shikibu, an aristocrat of the Heian period (794–1185) court. The scenes are painted in the “white drawing” (hakubyō) mode, in which a fine ink line is used to depict figures and spaces with great subtlety, punctuated only occasionally by traces of red pigment for a character’s lips, a detail of a garment, or a decorative element. These two scenes illustrate episodes from the chapt...