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Secondary sourcePaintinglate 16th–early 17th century

Butterflies (Kochō) from The Tale of Genji

Tosa Mitsuyoshi · late 16th–early 17th century

A six-panel folding screen from the late 16th century illustrating a chapter of Murasaki Shikibu's novel.

A painted screen illustrating a chapter from Murasaki Shikibu's novel, showing its artistic legacy.

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A six-panel gold-leaf folding screen painting. Gold clouds and mist fill the scene. Figures in courtly robes sit on wooden verandas and in a boat near a pavilion, with pine trees and rocks visible. Scattered butterflies and flowers appear in the middle.
Tosa Mitsuyoshi, Butterflies (Kochō), from The Tale of Genji, late 16th–early 17th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

About this source

What it is

This six-panel folding screen was painted by Tosa Mitsuyoshi using ink, color, gold and gold leaf on paper. It illustrates the 'Butterflies' (Kochō) chapter of Murasaki Shikibu's novel The Tale of Genji. It is held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Why it matters

The screen reflects how The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu, remained a key source for court painting styles generations later. Such large, luxurious screens show the novel's importance to elite patrons and artists of the Momoyama period.

Look closer

  • What different scenes can you identify across the six panels, and how do they connect?
  • Why might an artist choose gold leaf and bright color for scenes from this novel?
  • What parts of the story might be missing from a single painted chapter?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Murasaki Shikibu on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Open double-page spread of a Japanese manuscript with gold and silver flecks scattered on brown-orange and dark mauve paper. Black cursive kana calligraphy runs in vertical columns on both pages.Book

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Kokin Wakashū

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Diary entry

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The Diary of Lady Murasaki

Murasaki Shikibu · c. 1008–1010

Scan of a page of handwritten Japanese cursive calligraphy in brown ink on pale paper, written in vertical columns. This is the final part of the Tosa Nikki diary, copied by Fujiwara no Teika in the 13th century.Diary entry

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Tosa Nikki

Ki no Tsurayuki · 935 (copy 13th century)

Photograph of the front cover of a Japanese book bound in pale green-grey paper. A vertical cream label on the cover bears brush-written Japanese characters and a small seal-like stamp appears at lower left. A color calibration chart and a metric ruler are along the edges of the image.Book

Secondary source

Eiri Genji Monogatari

Yamamoto Shunshō · 1650

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