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

Late entries in the Kyōsai hyakuzu series — this print bears the number 80 — were likely produced as Kyosai's reputation was fully consolidated and his ability to command the full vocabulary of Japanese pictorial tradition was widely recognized. By this stage in the series, he had demonstrated range across supernatural subjects, nature imagery, Buddhist and Shinto iconography, literary reference, and popular satire. A composition at this position in the sequence might revisit an earlier theme with accumulated confidence, or introduce a subject that synthesized multiple strands of his practice. The printing quality of the Kyōsai hyakuzu series — careful registration, controlled bokashi gradations, precise block cutting — reflects the involvement of skilled Meiji craftsmen who understood how to translate Kyosai's painterly draftsmanship into the reproducible woodblock format without losing the essential character of his line.