月岡芳年 — TSUKIOKA YOSHITOSHI (1839–1892) Nikki Danjō Naonori (仁木弾正直則) — Changing into a Rat From Wakan Hyaku Monogatari (和漢百物語) — One Hundred Ghost Stories from China and Japan Technique: Woodblock print (mokuhanga), polychrome (nishiki-e) Date: c. 1865 Format: Ōban tate-e, approximately 24 × 34 cm ----------------------------------------------------------------- Impression & Colours: Very good. A well-printed impression with clear keyblock lines throughout. The deep indigo background — which dominates the composition and sets the nocturnal, supernatural mood — retains its full depth and density. The blue of Nikki Danjō's outer robe with its white chrysanthemum mon crests is vivid and well-saturated. The chocolate brown of his kataginu vest, the delicate flesh tones, and the geometric asanoha (hemp-leaf) pattern of his hakama are all cleanly rendered. The pale blue-to-white bokashi gradation at the hem of the trailing hakama — the zone of transformation where cloth dissolves into supernatural energy — is beautifully preserved. The black rat at lower left is printed with strong pigment density. Paper: There is a vertical fold line running through the right-centre of the image and some trimming outside the image area. One minor area of soiling on the front. Overall fair condition for a print of this period. Please examine all photographs carefully. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Sorcerer Becomes the Rat — Kabuki's Greatest Villain Look at the bottom of the print. Something is wrong with the fabric. The long white hakama trousers trail to the ground in crisp folds — and then, at their very edge, where cloth meets floor, they dissolve. The hem collapses into shapelessness, and from beneath the crumpled silk a black rat emerges, nosing forward with its tail curling behind it. The man above looks down with an expression of absolute composure — eyes half-closed, lips set, hands tucked into his sleeves — as if the monstrous thing happening at his feet were nothing more than a change of shoes. It is this eerie calm that makes the image so disturbing. The transformation is not violent. It is quiet, deliberate, and utterly controlled. The figure is Nikki Danjō Naonori, one of the most celebrated villains in the entire kabuki repertoire. He originates from the play Meiboku Sendai Hagi ("The Precious Incense and Autumn Flowers of Sendai"), first staged in Osaka in 1777. The drama is based on a real historical event — the attempted coup within the Date clan of Sendai in 1660, in which a faction of conspirators plotted to overthrow the legitimate young heir, Tsuruchiyo. Censorship laws required the playwrights to change the names and shift the setting, but audiences knew exactly what was being depicted. In the play, Nikki Danjō is the mastermind behind the conspiracy — a sorcerer who possesses the ability to transform himself into a giant rat. In the famous yuka no shita ("under the floor") scene, Danjō assumes rat form to steal a scroll containing evidence of his treason, clutching it in his teeth as he scurries beneath the floorboards. A loyal retainer, Arajishi Otokonosuke, catches the rat and strikes it on the head with an iron battle fan (gunbai). When Danjō transforms back into human form, the wound remains on his forehead — damning proof that the rat and the man are one. The scene has been performed continuously for over two hundred years and remains one of the annual highlights of the kabuki calendar. -------------------------------------------------------- The Series — Yoshitoshi's First Ghost Stories Wakan Hyaku Monogatari ("One Hundred Ghost Stories from China and Japan") is one of Yoshitoshi's earliest major series and his first venture into the supernatural subject matter that would define his career. Published in 1865, when the artist was just twenty-six, the series was inspired by the traditional parlour game hyaku monogatari kaidankai — a gathering in which participants tell ghost stories by candlelight, extinguishing one candle after each tale until the room is plunged into darkness and the spirits are said to appear. The project was hugely ambitious: Yoshitoshi planned one hundred designs, each illustrating a different tale from Japanese and Chinese supernatural literature, with accompanying texts by writers including Kanagaki Robun, Sumida Ryōko, Kikuyōtei Rokō, and Sankanjin Korai. Only twenty-six of the hundred designs were ever published before the series was abandoned — making each surviving sheet a fragment of an incomplete masterwork. Despite being an early work, the series already displays the compositional originality and psychological insight that would later make Yoshitoshi famous. Where contemporary print designers tended to depict ghosts and monsters as external threats — roaring demons, leaping spectres — Yoshitoshi was already interested in the uncanny: the moment of transformation, the boundary between the human and the inhuman, the calm before the horror. This print of Nikki Danjō is a perfect example. The monster is not above or behind or attacking — it is emerging from the man himself, from the hem of his own clothing, in the quietest and most unsettling way imaginable. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Tsukioka Yoshitoshi — The Last Master of Ukiyo-e Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839–1892) is widely recognised as the last great master of the ukiyo-e tradition and one of its most daring innovators. A pupil of Utagawa Kuniyoshi, he came of age at the precise moment when Japan — and its woodblock print industry — was undergoing the most violent transformation in its history. The Boshin War of 1868–1869, which Yoshitoshi witnessed at first hand, left a permanent mark on his art. His early work, including the Kaidai Hyaku Sensō and the notorious Eimei Nijūhasshūku ("Twenty-Eight Famous Murders"), stunned Edo audiences with their raw, confrontational depictions of violence — a far cry from the decorative elegance of his teacher's generation. Through decades of personal struggle — poverty, mental illness, the wholesale collapse of the woodblock printing industry under the onslaught of Western lithography and photography — Yoshitoshi continued to produce work of extraordinary power and ambition. His late masterpieces, above all the Tsuki Hyakushi ("One Hundred Aspects of the Moon," 1885–1892), are counted among the supreme achievements of Japanese printmaking. His work is held by the British Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and major collections worldwide.