Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre

In a ruined palace the sorceress Princess Takiyasha unrolls a scroll of spells and conjures a gigantic skeleton that rears through a torn bamboo blind to menace the warrior Ōya no Mitsukuni. Spanning three ōban sheets, Utagawa Kuniyoshi's triptych of c.1844 is the boldest of all ukiyo-e ghost images, its single vast skeleton—drawn with an anatomist's relish—breaking the convention of depicting crowds of small phantoms. Kuniyoshi was the great master of the warrior and supernatural print, and this design has become the most reproduced Japanese image of the uncanny. Fine impressions are held at the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.