This portrait conflates Japan’s military ruler, Shōgun Tokugawa Ietsuna (1641–80), with the emperor. It is almost entirely a work of European imagination, featuring a Middle Eastern-style turban and ornaments derived from costume books or prints of other ‘exotic’ lands. Few foreigners had seen the shōgun’s face at this date – but the urge to represent him demonstrates the allure of this inaccessible country.