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Secondary sourcePainting

Lady Murasaki, Tosa School Painting

A fan-shaped Tosa school painting of Lady Murasaki, held at the Honolulu Museum of Art.

A Tosa school image imagining Lady Murasaki, reflecting her lasting place in Japanese court-literature painting traditions.

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A fan-shaped painting on gold-toned ground showing a woman in layered robes reclining on a low table-like surface beside a wooden railing and blinds, with a flowering or autumn-leaved tree at right. Mounted on a white matte.
Lady Murasaki, Tosa school painting. Honolulu Museum of Art, accession 5264.1.

About this source

What it is

This is a fan-shaped painting from the Tosa school tradition, held in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art. It shows a woman in layered robes reclining beside a wooden railing and blinds, with a flowering or autumn-leaved tree nearby, on a gold-toned background.

Why it matters

The Tosa school specialised in painting scenes from classical court literature, including Murasaki Shikibu's own writings. This image reflects how later artists pictured her as an elegant figure from the Heian court, continuing to shape her image long after her lifetime.

Look closer

  • What do the clothing and setting suggest about the kind of life being shown?
  • Why might artists from this school have been drawn to painting Murasaki?
  • What is left out of this elegant image that a real historical portrait might include?

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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