Artist: Kawase Hasui
Medium: Original Japanese Woodblock Print
Series Title: Landscape
Edition: First and only
Date: 1919
Publisher: S. Watanabe Color Print Co.
Reference No.: Hotei #6
Size: 7 -1/2 × 19 "
Condition: Very fine
Notes:
A highly coveted and extremely scarce design. Just the sixth completed Hasui print, in collaboration with the S. Watanabe Print Co.
The pre-earthquake era captured a pristine, dreamy vision of Japan shifting rapidly into modernization. Hasui utilized Western techniques of light and shadow while anchoring his work in traditional ukiyo-e aesthetic values. In Japanese art history, "pre-earthquake" prints by Kawase Hasui represent a rare, finite body of work created before the catastrophic Great Kanto Earthquake of September 1, 1923. This environmental disaster leveled Tokyo, burning his personal home, 188 original sketchbooks, and the print workshop of his master publisher, Watanabe Shozaburo. Because the original hand-carved woodblocks and unsold inventory were permanently incinerated, any surviving early lifetime impressions are finite, scarce, and highly sought-after by art collectors.