Landscape to City: A Collection of 20th Century Japanese Prints
Landscape to City: A Collection of 20th Century Japanese Prints
Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950) | Kumoi Cherry Trees (Kumoi sakura) | Taisho period, early 20th century
A rare large format woodblock print
Lot Closed
November 18, 02:25 PM GMT
Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950)
Kumoi Cherry Trees (Kumoi sakura)
Taisho period, early 20th century
woodblock print, signed in pencil in Roman script to the lower right margin Hiroshi Yoshida, and in Japanese Yoshida, sealed Hiroshi, and with artist’s jizuri (self-published) seal, titled as above, with carver's seal of Maeda Yujiro (1889-1957) to the lower left, dated Taisho jugonen saku (made in 1926)
58.7 x 74.2 cm., 23⅛ x 29¼ in.
Two female figures stand pensively before two old cherry trees in the light of a full moon. The gnarled withering branches overhang in soft pink blossoms. These are sakura blossoms from Mount Yoshino, a famed spot renowned in classical poetry and verse for its cherry trees throughout the centuries.
The figures in the foreground are known to be the daughters of Kawai Shinzo (1867-1936), a fellow artist and friend of Yoshida’s. The composition was based on an earlier watercolour, Kumoi Famous Cherry Blossom in Yoshino, 1899, which was exhibited at the Detroit Institute of Arts in the same year and purchased shortly after by the museum. For the design of the print, Yoshida relocated his figures to the foreground and reduced their number to two, clearing the foliage and grasses to allow a direct view of the two women enjoying the spring evening blossoms.
This large format work is of the largest type Yoshida employed in his printing output. Printing to this scale is fraught with difficulty; the perfect registration of the block onto the paper due to the difference in shrinkage between the two materials. In order to achieve Yoshida’s exacting standards, the large block surface was divided into three sections and two artisan printers were needed to work in conjunction to execute the three necessary printings. Perhaps due to the technical feat required in printing this work, only fifty impressions are recorded to have been printed.
References
Dorothy Blair, Modern Japanese Prints, Toledo Museum of Art, 1930, cat. no. 298.
Tadao Ogura, Yoshida Hiroshi zenhangashu (The Complete Woodblock Prints of Hiroshi Yoshida), 1987, p. 80, no. 76.
For the original watercolour entitled Memories of Japan, 1899, in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts, accession number 99.3, go to:
https://dia.org/collection/memories-japan-65740
For a different impression of the same print in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession number 52.272, go to: