The Fox Woman

Bertha Lum

In Japan, foxes play an important role in the spiritual practices of the Inari shrines, and fox deities, known as kitsuri, are seen as symbols of protection. When money replaced rice as the measure of wealth in the early 17th century, followers of Inari in Ginza struck coins with an image of two foxes to be used as offerings to the shrine for good luck. Western artists often found inspiration in the fox deities as well, as with Bertha Lum in “The Fox Woman,” perhaps borrowing inspiration from the Japanese belief that any woman walking alone at dusk or night could shapeshift into a fox to protect herself from harm - or to woo a lover.

Bertha Lum notes on page 37 of her 1916 book Gods, Ghosts, and Goblins: "From ancient times to the present day foxes have played an important part in Oriental lore. A fox is supposed to live eight hundred years, and when it is three hundred it can take a human shape...

'When one hundred years old he can become a "ton," a beautiful woman who has the powers of sorcery and who knows events a thousand miles distant and can possess and bewilder people until they lose their memory'. This impression was exhibited in "Visions of the Orient: Western Women Artists in Asia 1900-1940" at the Pacific Asia Museum.