from the series One Hundred Pictures by Kyôsai (Kyôsai hyakuzu)

Foxes (kitsune) carry deep resonance in Japanese visual culture as shape-shifting supernatural beings associated with the Inari cult, feminine deception, and the boundary between the human and spirit worlds. Kyōsai hyakuzu engages this tradition with characteristic ambiguity: the fox may appear as a literal animal, as a fox-spirit performing transformation, or as a disguised human revealed by the tell-tale tail. This print likely presents a kitsune in one of these liminal states, perhaps caught mid-transformation or depicted in the act of ritual fox-fire (kitsunebi). Kyōsai's foxes show a debt to his training under Shibata Zeshin, whose lacquer-painting aesthetic influenced Kyōsai's handling of dark grounds and iridescent effects. The tawny fur of the animal was probably printed using a warm ochre with ink-wash overlay, while any supernatural flame would have been rendered through careful bokashi shading in pale blue or yellow-white.