The Egg, Wasp and Mortar Attack the Monkey

From the folktale Saru kani gassen, in which a wronged crab's allies — an egg, a wasp, a sea-chestnut, and a wooden mortar — take revenge on the monkey who killed her by attacking him in his kitchen. Ozawa Nankoku has chosen the climactic moment of the assault, with the wasp diving at the monkey's head, the wooden mortar poised to fall from the rafters, and the egg crouched near the hearth waiting to explode when the monkey reaches for warmth. The composition uses the interior of the monkey's farmhouse as a shallow stage, with the receding lines of the tatami and the heavy ceiling beam framing the action. Ozawa's drawing animates each of the small attackers with a distinct posture, and the monkey's startled body at lower right is described with a single sweeping outline rather than detailed musculature. Engraved in New York by Henry W. Troy from the original Tokyo drawing, the plate keeps Ozawa's open compositional armature intact but supplements it with the cross-hatched tonal patches that European wood-engravers used to suggest interior shadow.