Artist: Kawase Hasui
Medium: Original Japanese Woodblock Print
Series Title: Mitsubishi Fukagawa Series
Edition: First State
Date: 1920
Publisher: S. Watanabe Color Print Co.
Reference No.: Hotei #49
Size: 7 -1/4 x 18 -1/2 " (Naga-ban Format)
Condition: Very fine, with superb colors
Notes:
First state impression, in far superior condition to the example shown in Hotei. Please refer to page 304 of the Kawase Hasui Hotei Vol. 1 (#49/49a) catalog for the numerous differences between this impression and the later smaller variant state.
The Mitsubishi Company planned this set of eight woodblock prints illustrating the Iwasaki family's Kiyosumi detached villa and garden at Fukagawa in eastern Tokyo as gifts for their domestic and foreign clients. Hasui's sketches of the villa were published as prints by Watanabe Shozaburo in 1920 and such commission would add to the artist's growing international reputation. This rendition of a spring shower that creates a vague outline of pines along the waterline is a unique trait in Hasui's work.