The Illustrated Handscroll is a narrative figure painting that depicts a series of anecdotes involving ten imperial empress and consorts over the centuries spanning from the Western Zhou period (1046-771 BCE) to the Song dynasty (960-1279). Examination of literary evidence and its variant versions suggests that the work used to be titled “Illustration of Virtuous Empress and Sagacious Consorts of All the Dynasties” and also that the theme has prevailed among literati elites in the Yangze delta region since the sixteenth century on. Stylistically akin to paintings of court ladies by Qiu Ying (ca. 1495-1552) or Tang Yin (1470- 1524), the work now in Taipei shows deep affinity with fake paintings forged under the names of the renowned painters of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), known as Suzhou-pian. Written accounts on the “Illustration” theme cluster around catalogues of painting and calligraphy edited by Ming and Qing literati, the debut of which dates no earlier than the late sixteenth century. Given that the earliest record of the theme goes back to the Wanli reign (1572-1620), a period when Suzhou-pian enjoyed popularity, and further that its pictorial forms and modes accord with distinctive characters of the Suzhou fakes, the illustration of the honorable imperial ladies is most likely a late invention without an old prototype. In particular, the Taipei scroll shows a few hallmarks of the late Ming forgeries: the unreliable signature stating, “Respectfully painted and humbly written by the subject Wang Zhenpeng (active 1275-1330) with hundred kowtows,” and a body of manufactured colophons claiming false authorship of celebrated figures with spurious seals. Certainly it is one of the “Illustration” fabricated as a Suzhou-pian on the grounds that A) the theme has never been documented until the sixteenth century, let alone nothing from the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368); B) the work to which the earliest document refers still remains dubious; C) the viewership of its variant versions is confined within acclaimed artists or collectors from the Yangze delta region of the fifteenth through sixteenth centuries; D) the names of those esteemed viewers serve as the source of forged seals and inscriptions; and E) the preface of the Taipei scroll bears a problematic joint signature and fictitious official seals of the Yuan imperial court. The background against which the “Illustration” has come into being as a subject of Suzhou-pian lies in a context that the Ming and Qing literati’s fever of collecting Yuan imperial artifacts was incorporated into the then consumer culture. At the same time, the emergence of the theme is indicative of a newly rising awareness of the ancient women of chastity and virtue, part of cultural phenomena resulting from the elevation of woman’s status in the late Ming period. In addition, its popularity represents an attempt to modify Confucianism according to the rapid shifts of the society. In the same vein, this essay argues that Painting of Wise and Virtuous Queens and Painting of Wise Queens , the Taipei scroll’s variants housed in the National Museum of Korea, are highly likely Suzhou-pian productions dated the late seventeenth century. The pictorial styles employed for female figures in both paintings have exceeding affinity with Lady Su Hui and Her Verse Puzzle, the seventeenth-century Suzhou-pian conventionally ascribed to Qiu Ying. The landscape modes on the screen within the two pictures are comparable to the styles of the Wu School that f lourished in the Ming period. The calligraphic as well as signature types adopted for their colophons and inscriptions run in parallel with another example of Suzhou- pian affiliated with Liu Songnian (1174-1224), sharing the late Ming calligraphic fashion.