絵本真田三代記
This is a late nineteenth-century Japanese illustrated book, an ehon, published in 1886 by Tsurusei-sha, retelling the Sanada family's three generations of warriors for a general reading public. Its woodblock-style black-and-white pictures show seated nobles, armoured samurai among pine trees, a bamboo grove council, and a kneeling retainer beside a shoji screen. A designer could take from them the bold hatched patterning of armour and textiles, the tight linework, and the contrast of dense ink masses against open white ground.
