KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760-1849) THE GHOST OF KOHADA KOHEIJI EDO PERIOD, 19TH CENTURY

Timothy Clark, Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave (London, 2017), no. 153 

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/jan/10/katsushika-hokusais-later-life-to-feature-in-british-museum-show 

A ghostly skeleton appears from behind a bright blue net curtain. His bony hands spine-chillingly clutch at the red-coloured edge of the cloth as he pulls it down, his mouth stretched into a sinister grin and his veiny eyes bulging from their sockets. This is the ghost of Kohada Koheiji, paying a revengeful visit to his adulterous wife and her lover, who together successfully conspired to drown Koheiji in Asaka swamp. This tale belongs to the tradition of recounting ghost stories by candlelight, known as the 100 Ghost Tales (Hyaku monogatori): for each tale told a candle would be extinguished with the expectation that ghosts would appear once the room was pitch black. Only five prints from this series are known to have been published and only a limited number of impressions survive. Timothy Clark has identified the fantastical and graphic imagery employed by Hokusai in this series as being a precursor to the later Japanese manga tradition.

For further examples in museum collections see The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession no. 21.10235 and the British Museum, accession no. 2016,3015.2.