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Description
Lord Sadanobu was a minister at the Heian court in the first half of the tenth century. The 13th-century book Okagami tells the story of how one evening, as he was hurrying to a meeting at the imperial palace, he felt something grab the end of his scabbard. Pulling his sword he shouted that he was on the emperor's business and anyone interfered at their peril. Confounded by such boldness, the demon fled. Sadanobu's robes and hat are Chinese in style, a reflection of the Heian court's emulation of Chinese models. His robes have a black-on-black pattern, dimly seen in the image, produced by a technique called shomenzuri. In this process the robe was printed in black, then the printed sheet was laid over a block carved with the robe's pattern and burnished with an animal tooth. (John Stevenson, Yoshitoshi's Strange Tales, pp. 32, 84.)
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