The Fox Cry
Sheet: 14 9/16 x 9 13/16 inches (36.99 x 24.92 cm)
Ukiyoe ("pictures of the floating world") woodblock prints were widely admired during the Edo period (1615-1868), especially the 1700s. Tsukioka Yoshitoshi was one of the last ukiyoe artists popular with collectors in the late 1800s.
In Japanese folk tales, foxes and badgers are tricksters. They often disguise themselves as humans, ghosts, or even daily objects, such as those depicted in these prints. Some stories convey moral messages, while others suggest the close relationship between humans and swindlers.
With Mr. and Mrs. Charles A. Duboc, Mission Hills, KS, by 1989;
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1989.Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 370.
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), no. 78, 402.
T.R. Reid, Earth Spiders and Careful Tigers, vol. 22 (Virgina: National Wildlife Federation, 1992) no. 2, 45
