Tsuen, from the series "Fifty Kyogen Plays (Kyogen gojuban)"

Tsuen, issued in 1922 within Tsukioka Kogyo's 'Fifty Kyogen Plays (Kyogen gojuban),' depicts the title character, a tea master from Uji whose ghost recounts his death in a parody of the noh play Yorimasa. The play is one of the rare kyogen pieces that mimics noh's high style for comic purposes, and it requires actors comfortable moving between the two forms. Tsukioka Kogyo (1869-1927), who had spent decades documenting both noh and kyogen in Meiji woodblock and Taisho-era prints, was uniquely positioned to capture a play that depends on the audience's familiarity with both. The design isolates Tsuen on an open ground, with the spear-prop and ghostly mask that signal the play's parodic engagement with Yorimasa. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this impression. Kogyo's noh-e conventions, refined since his Nogaku hyakuban project of 1893, here serve the unusual case of a kyogen play in noh dress, and the print rewards viewers who can read the layered visual references. Subtle details in the costume distinguish this from a straight noh depiction, while the overall framing borrows enough of the noh idiom to make the parody land. For collectors interested in the rare cross-genre kyogen plays, Tsuen is one of the standout sheets in the series and an instructive entry in any noh-e study group.