Index Sheet, , from the series "One Hundred No Dramas (Nogaku hyakuban)"

This index sheet from 'One Hundred No Dramas (Nogaku hyakuban),' dated 1893, opens one of the most ambitious noh-e projects of the late Meiji period. Tsukioka Kogyo (1869-1927) devoted much of his mature career to documenting the noh stage in print, and this Meiji woodblock organizing sheet served as the catalog and navigation guide for collectors assembling the series. As an index, it identifies the titles, scenes, and sequence of the hundred prints that follow, functioning much like the table-of-contents page in a deluxe printed album. The format reflects the publisher's serial release model, in which subscribers received prints in installments and needed a master list to track completeness. For Tsukioka Kogyo, who had studied first under Ogata Gekko and then with Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (whose name he adopted), the project marked a turning point from generalist illustrator to specialist in noh-e. The Art Institute of Chicago, which holds this impression, preserves the sheet as the structural framework around which the broader series should be read. Restrained typography, balanced spacing, and the careful hierarchy of titles demonstrate the print designer's sensitivity to graphic order. Where most surviving Meiji woodblock series are encountered as scattered single sheets, this index allows scholars and collectors to reconstruct Kogyo's original editorial intent and to verify which plays he chose to canonize among the hundreds in the noh repertory. It is an essential reference document for any serious study of the Nogaku hyakuban series.