Heiji Rebellion
Art historian Ikeda Shinobu of Chiba University theorizes that given the grandiosity of the scroll, its sexualized depiction of female bodies amidst violence, and the ordered uniformity of the belligerents, the original commissioner or intended recipient was a male aristocrat. Given the rising power of the Samurai in the wake of the Heiji Rebellion and its subsequent decades leading into the Kamakura Period, Shinobu asserts, the martial order of the warriors in the painting in conjunction with the lack of aristocratic depictions mount a compelling argument for the recipient being an upper-class court scholar.