Onoe Baiko VII as the demon of Ibaraki in the play Ibaraki.

Ibaraki recounts the demon's return, in the guise of the elderly aunt Mashiba, to recover the severed arm that the warrior Watanabe no Tsuna had taken at the Rashomon gate. Kokei's portrait of Onoe Baiko VII captures the dance-play's pivotal transformation, the serene old-woman countenance fissured by the demonic identity beginning to surface. The white hair, modeled with delicate keyblock lines, gives way at the crown to a touch of red, while the gofun face is set against a restrained ground tone deepened by hand-rubbed [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi). Printed on ganpi in a small numbered edition, the work joins Kokei's portrayals of supernatural and onnagata roles. Baiko VII held living-national-treasure designation as an onnagata, and by recording him Kokei extends the actor-portrait tradition of Toshusai Sharaku and Utagawa Toyokuni I into the late twentieth century, working within the [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) ethos of self-design, self-carving, and self-printing.