絵本三国妖婦伝
This is a Meiji-era Japanese woodblock picture book (ehon) published in 1890 by Tsujimoto Kyuhei, written by Takai Ranzan and drawn in the bold line style of late Edo printing. The pictures show courtly women in layered patterned robes, a fighting figure with flying ribbons among clouds, armoured warriors in a dim interior, and a seated figure behind a lattice screen, with columns of vertical Japanese text beside them. A designer might take the dense hatched patterning of costumes and the strong black outlines as a reference for decorative pattern work and for compositions that pair text panels with figures.
