Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892)

This design is based on the well-known story of The Tongue-Cut Sparrow, where an old woman, seeing her husband rewarded with a basket of treasure for feeding an enchanted sparrow, cuts off the tongue of the sparrow. She then uses devious means to also receive a basket from the sparrow, expecting it to also be full of treasure, but when she opens it demons spring out and attack her. This print shows the moment that the greedy old woman opens the basket from the sparrow and the demons spring out.

See also lot 118 for a triptych by Utagawa Yoshimori depicting the same scene.

For another impression in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, accession number 11.37644, go to www.mfa.org/collections