Footnotes

• One of the best-known examples of this subject, for which Okyo was famous in his own lifetime, is in a private collection deposited with the Berkeley Art Museum, University of California. The subject is traditionally said to be the ghost of the artist's former young lover Oyuki, who appeared to him after her death, giving Okyo the opportunity to study her calmly, as his commitment to close and direct observation required; see Sasaki Shohei, Maruyama Okyo: Shaseiga, sozo e no chosen (Maruyama Okyo: Shaseiga—Challenging a New Frontier), Osaka, Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, 2003, cat. no.68. For a recent popular account of Okyo and Oyuki, see also Zack Davisson, Yurei: The Japanese Ghost, Seattle, Chin Music Press Inc., 2015, Chapter 1, 'The Ghost of Oyuki').
  
  Manzotei, referred to in the box inscription, is a name used by Morishima Churyo (also called Katsuragawa Hosan) a versatile scholar and writer who specialised in Rangaku (Dutch or Western learning), penned kibyoshi and othe types of popular fiction and associated with such progressive luminaries as the mineralogist, satirist, scholar, and ceramic designer Hiraga Gennai, with whom he co-authored a number of plays. His elder brother Hoshu held the prestigious position of shogunal physician. The inscription also refers to Morishima's Keirin manroku, first published in Edo in 1800, an example of the zuihitsu (miscellaneous-essay) genre which includes his jottings on a wide range of subjects including ghosts, discussed toward the end of volume 1 where a brief essay traces the Japanese literature on female ghosts back to the Man'yoshu anthology (8th century) and notes that in Japan they were notorious for their trickery. Morishima goes on to mention that the Kyoto master Maruyama Okyo was famous for his female ghost paintings and that he owns a particularly fine example, 'which makes the viewer's hair stand on end'.

Saleroom notices

• The painting is published and illustrated by Kaneko Nobuhisa, Motto shiritai Nagasawa Rosetsu: shogai to sakuhin (Want to Know More about Nagasawa Rosetsu: The Life and Work), Tokyo, Tokyo Bijutsu, 2014, p.67.