The Dragon King's Gift of the Tide Jewels

The closing illustration of Griffis's volume depicts the Dragon King of the Sea presenting the kanju and manju — the jewel that calls the tide in and the jewel that calls the tide out — to a visiting Japanese hero. Ozawa Nankoku has composed the scene as a formal court interview: the Dragon King is enthroned at centre on a stepped dais surrounded by attendants in the elaborate official robes that Edo-period painters reserved for such submarine ceremonies, while the human visitor kneels before him to receive the casket containing the two jewels. The setting is suggested rather than detailed — a few wave-curls and shellfish forms around the lower margin indicate that the scene is undersea — and the composition relies on the strong vertical of the king's regalia at centre to organise the design. Ozawa's drawing handles the formal ceremony with the disciplined symmetry of late-Edo court painting, while the looser undersea ornament around the edges releases enough movement to keep the page lively. Henry W. Troy's New York wood-engraving cuts the elaborate robes with the close parallel hatching that European illustrators used for embroidered fabric, intensifying the contrast between the densely ornamented king and the simply outlined kneeling hero.