The Sorceress Melting the Bell

A wild-haired sorceress in a patterned robe crouches atop a large hanging temple bell suspended from a wooden frame, her body arched and clawed hands gripping its surface as if melting it from within; wisps of smoke or vapor curl around her. Below and to the right, three bearded, robed men recoil in alarm, hands raised, beneath overhanging tree branches rendered in fine cross-hatched lines with diagonal shading suggesting shafts of light. The scene is a monochrome wood-engraved illustration, 1880, drawn by Ozawa Nankoku of Tokyo and engraved by Henry W. Troy of New York, set among rocky ground and gnarled tree trunks with a wooden signpost bearing vertical Japanese characters at right.