"This painting comes from a series showing the ten infernal rulers of Chinese Buddhism. In the foreground sinners are tortured, while a demon takes the soul of a woman with her child to the terrible judge, wearing a collar of shame about her neck. In the 13th and 14th centuries Hell pictures of this kind were made by particular guilds of painters in the neighbourhood of the city of Ning-po, in Chekiang province." (from "The Oriental World")