Ono no Komachi, a writer from the Heian period (794–1185), is named as one of the six great classical waka poets. Her name became a symbol of feminine beauty, so much so that in the early 1800s, a lip rouge called Komachi-beni was named after her (see Accession no. 2024.046).

Beni making businesses (beni-ya) would finance woodblock print designs that used this connection between beni and beauty as a way to market their products. In this print, the writer Ryûkatei Tanekazu, who was one of the authors of the very popular Shiranui Monogatari tales, was commissioned to write a text comparing Ono no Komachi with beni.