Artworks

Sarayashiki (House of Plates), from One Hundred Ghost Stories

Artwork · Katsushika Hokusai · c. 1830 · Japanese woodblock print · Tokyo National Museum

One of five designs Katsushika Hokusai made for a series on ghost tales: a servant girl falsely accused of breaking one of ten blue-and-white plates was drowned in a well; at night her voice counts up to nine and wails. Against a deep-blue sky her head rises from the well on a neck of plates, a thin trail of white smoke issuing from her mouth. 1 Mason 2005, pp. 290–291, fig. 332. ↩ Literatur Mason 2005: Penelope E. Mason, History of Japanese Art, 2nd, Pearson Education LTD. 2005.