Ikkaku Sennin, from the series "One Hundred No Dramas (Nogaku hyakuban)"

Ikkaku Sennin (The One-Horned Hermit) belongs to the kishin-mono category of Noh, plays featuring demonic or wondrous beings. Tsukioka Kōgyo's print in the Nōgaku Hyaku-ban series captures the play's striking visual subject: a hermit-sage with a single horn on his forehead who, in a fit of anger, has locked away the dragon kings responsible for rain, causing drought across the land. The court sends a beautiful court lady to seduce him and break the spell. Kōgyo depicts the hermit shite in his distinctive costume and mask, with the horn rendered in the careful detail that has made his Noh prints essential references for costume reconstruction. Published by Matsuki Heikichi between 1922 and 1926 with some impressions dated to 1898/1903 by the Art Institute of Chicago, the print belongs to the great Meiji-Taishō documentation project that Kōgyo undertook as the spiritual heir to his adoptive father Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. Like the rest of the Nōgaku Hyaku-ban set, it documents costume, mask, and stage property with archival precision.