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

From Kyosai hyakuzu, this print likely presents a scene involving cats — animals that appear throughout Kyosai's work, often invested with supernatural or comic significance. Cats in Japanese tradition were associated with the bakeneko, a shapeshifting feline spirit, and Kyosai depicted both ordinary cats and their supernatural counterparts with characteristic intensity. A bakeneko dancing under lantern light, or a group of cats engaged in human activity, would draw on the same tradition of anthropomorphized animal imagery explored by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, though Kyosai's handling of such subjects tends toward the psychologically uncanny rather than the straightforwardly comic. The composition might employ a nighttime setting with localized lantern light providing warm contrast against a dark ground achieved through bokashi application. The print demonstrates Kyosai's engagement with popular Edo-period subjects while inflecting them with his own distinctive sensibility.