Page from the Tsurayuki Anthology, vol. 2, known as Ishiyama-gire

This page is from volume two of the poems of Ki no Tsurayuki. This book and the poems of Lady Ise were the two volumes broken up early in the century to make the Ishiyama-gire fragments. This is the back side of a left page with lion rondels and vine motif printed in mica on white-coated paper. The grasses, branches and birds were drawn with a combination of gold and silver inks. The calligraphy is by Fujiwara no Sadanobu, the leading calligrapher of the late Heian period. His writing is swifter, bolder and more unconventional than that of the writer of the Ise Shu pages. We have examples of Sadanobu's style in writing Chinese characters in several fragments in the kohitsu tekagami Sokyo.