Artist: Takahashi Shotei
Medium: Original Japanese Woodblock Print
Series Title: Snow
Edition: First
Date: 1915
Publisher: S. Watanabe Color Print Co.
Reference No.: Folk Museum #87
Size: 6 -3/4 x 15 "
Condition: Very fine
Notes:
An exceptional 1915 snow scene by the artist. The S. Watanabe Print Catalog Stamp #902 on reverse.
The distinctively large circular Watanabe publisher seal included in this impression is generally only found on very early Watanabe-produced prints. The first Watanabe round seal was a large format about 1 cm in diameter, of which about 4 types have been noted to date, all black in color. This large-format Watanabe round seal was used from 1909 until 1916 (Taisho 5). In the 1915 Shotei design, “Ayasegawa River in Snow”, the seal is actually carved into the woodblock itself.
The composition uses a highly restrained, quiet color palette of deep grays, soft blues, and exposed paper white to capture the heavy silence of a winter evening along the banks of the Ayase River. Like most of Shōtei's early catalog, the original printing blocks and unsold stock of this design were completely incinerated in the fires following the catastrophic Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923. As a result, early lifetime strikes are extremely rare.