BENRIDO Decorative Picture Scroll SET, "Minister Kibi's Adventures in China"

The Benrido Atelier is a COLLOTYPE workshop based in Kyoto, Japan and has mastered the art style since 1887. Their beautiful designs make for amazing Japanese gifts, decorations and souvenirs. The printing requires the best materials, with quality ink and handmade Japanese washi paper, and experienced craftsmen are the only ones able to properly design the prints - Each individual step requires experience and eye for detail to create beautiful tones and to properly balance the pigment.  

The Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki originally consisted of a single scroll 32 cm (13 in) high by 2,440.8 cm (960.9 in) long, the longest single scroll ever known, before being separated into four parts.

The main character in the work is Japanese Minister Kibi no Makibi (693–775), whose diplomatic trips to the powerful Tang court in China have inspired legendary chronicles. The emakimono takes as its theme an episode from these legends: the adventures of Kibi while staying at the Chinese Imperial Palace, where Chinese intellectuals and nobles wanted to put his wisdom and intelligence to the test. Secluded in a tower, Kibi had to accomplish three tasks: write an exegesis of a voluminous Chinese anthology, win a game of Go, and provide a commentary on a sophisticated and tortuous poem. The Minister managed to pass all of the tests, with the help of Japanese deities.

Although the scroll ends at the conclusion of this second test, the text of Gōdanshō [ja] (1104–1108), a classic of Japanese literature, allows us to know the end of the story:[8] after Kibi's success, thanks to the supernatural intervention of a spider, in the final test of providing a commentary on a poem, the Chinese decide to lock him up until he dies. Kibi, with the help of the demon, then makes the Chinese sun and moon disappear, forcing the terrified Imperial court to give him back his freedom. It is likely that a second scroll narrating the end of the legend originally existed, or was part of later versions.[9]