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Secondary sourcePainting

Murasaki Shikibu Print, BnF Japonais 5341

A painted illustration of Murasaki Shikibu reading a scroll, held in the Japanese collection of the French national library.

A later imagined image of Murasaki Shikibu reading, now preserved in a major library's Japanese collection.

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Painted illustration on tan paper of a court woman with long black hair seated among layered white and patterned fabric, reading a scroll, with a black lacquer box with gold decoration beside her and a red box below. Handwritten Japanese calligraphy in black ink runs down both sides.
Murasaki Shikibu print, BnF Japonais 5341(8).

About this source

What it is

This is a painted illustration on tan paper, part of a Japanese collection held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. It shows a court woman with long black hair seated among layered robes, reading a scroll, with a decorated lacquer box nearby and Japanese calligraphy running down both sides.

Why it matters

Like other later images, this print does not show the real Murasaki Shikibu but reflects how she was imagined by later artists as an elegant court woman absorbed in reading and writing. Its presence in a major library collection shows how far her image travelled beyond Japan.

Look closer

  • What clues suggest this woman is meant to be a writer or reader?
  • Why might this image have ended up in a foreign national library's collection?
  • What does the calligraphy around the figure add to the image?

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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