絵本平家物語
This is a Meiji-era reprint of an ehon picture book, the Ehon Heike Monogatari, compiled by Takai Ranzan and published in 1886 by Nakagawa Tetsujiro in Japan for general readers of the Heike tale of the Taira clan. Its woodblock-style black-and-white pictures show a seated monk and a courtier in an interior, a skull-heaped scene with a robed priest on a bridge, and a mounted warrior fighting beside a pine on a snowy slope. A designer could draw on their dense line work, flat patterned robes, and calligraphic captions set into the margins for a historical Japanese look.
