The Genji Monogatari Emaki are the oldest surviving illustrated handscrolls of Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji, painted in the courtly onna-e tsukuri-e technique: opaque mineral pigment built up edge-to-edge, ink outlines redrawn on top, gold dust scattered as cloud-bands. Roofs are blown away to peer down into the rooms below, faces are reduced to a line-eye and a hook-nose, and robes pile up in twelve saturated layers.

Nine centuries of darkening have deepened those grounds into purple-browns and bruised murasaki — not the pale paper of later prints. This system keeps that aged, heavy, jewel-box surface: court-purple sovereign, gold dust, vermilion and malachite accents, every panel a fragment of scroll.