Minneapolis Institute of Art

Picture of the Lonely House at Adachigahara in Ōshū

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi; Publisher: Matsui Eikichi; Carver: Takimoto ChokuzanLinkedCulture matchlcp-84819e51dedb

Date: September 1885
Medium: Woodblock print (nishiki-e), ink and color on paper
Department: Asian Art
Institution: Minneapolis Institute of Art
Object ID: 127893

From the Minneapolis Institute of Art record

A heavily pregnant woman is bound and gagged, strung upside-down from the ceiling in an old hut. Below, a wizened old woman sharpens her knife, ready to cut open the woman’s belly. The gruesome story depicted here begins as a quest to cure a sick child. The child’s mother, a princess, sends a wet nurse to find the liver of a newborn baby, the main ingredient required for the cure for the infant’s sickness. Unable to find a mother willing to sacrifice her child, the wet nurse decides to hide in a cave and wait for a pregnant woman to pass by. When one does, the wet nurse abducts her and kills her during her labor, realizing only too late that it was her own pregnant daughter. The horrendous deed drives the woman insane, and she turns into a demon, forever haunting the moor in search of human flesh. Japan, Asia

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Provenance & credit

As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.

Credit line: The Mary Griggs Burke Endowment Fund established by the Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation, gifts of various donors, by exchange, and gift of Edmond Freis in memory of his parents, Rose and Leon Freis