Ukiyo-e is a Japanese art genre from the 17th to 19th centuries, whose woodblock prints and paintings showed beauties, actors, landscapes and scenes of the pleasure districts. Its name means pictures of the floating world, a phrase for the hedonistic lifestyle of Edo's merchant class, who could afford to decorate their homes with it. Prints were made by a team: the artist designed them, a carver cut the blocks, a printer inked and pressed them, and a publisher sold them. Full colour became standard in the 1760s, with ten or more blocks per print. Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa and Hiroshige's landscapes became so famous in Europe that they shaped Western ideas of Japanese art.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.