Help identifying signature


I am trying to identify what I'm assuming is a name or signature written in
Japanese. The author of the note was a German/Japanese American, and he wrote
the note to identify the name of an artist in 1928.[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nmepS.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nmepS.jpg)
The character is directly after the English word "by" written in script. Thank
you for any assistance, including letting me know this is not Japanese or
undecipherable if either is the case.




This looks like it could be an extremely slanted version of _by 「キ」_ except
that the Japanese "parentheses" 「」 are on the other side, as is customary for
vertical (top-to-bottom) writing:

> ﹁  
>  キ  
>  ﹂

キ would be read as _ki_ and it probably isn't intended as a word, but could be
an "initial" (although that's not customary in Japan), something like "K".

