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March 2024

Japanese Paintings, Prints, and Illustrated Books: 1760‒1810

March 15‒22, 2024 (closed Sunday)
11 AM to 5 PM, by appointment only

17 East 76th Street, 3rd Floor,
New York 10021


Tel: 212-794-1522
Email: info@izzardasianart.com









Japanese Paintings, Prints, and Illustrated Books: 1760‒1810

Our spring exhibition explores the graphic culture of Edo in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The introduction of color printing in the 1760s led to new techniques which were quickly adopted by the skilled craftsmen employed by the publishers of the period. The exhibition also chronicles changes in fashions and political affairs that affected the world of ukiyo-e, both in representations of the licensed entertainment quarter of the Yoshiwara and the city at large. Suzuki Harunobu (1724–1770) and his contemporaries are represented as are his successors in the following decades such as Torii Kiyonaga and Kitagawa Utamaro.

Poetry circles, already a significant source of patronage for artists such as Harunobu, flourished during the 1770s and 1780s. The samurai and wealthy merchants who formed much of their membership enjoyed rowdy, alcohol-fueled parties where they rubbed shoulders with celebrities including leading actors and the highest-ranking courtesans. Poets such as Ōta Nanpō (Shokusanjin, 1749–1823) and Akera Kankō (1740‒1799) worked with the publisher Tsutaya Jūzaburō (1750–1797) to promote the literary efforts of the participants, resulting in numerous kyōka anthologies illustrated by leading artists such as Kitao Masanobu (Santō Kyōden, 1761–1816), and Utamaro. The exhibition features several important examples including a fine copy of Kyōden’s masterwork Yoshiwara Courtesans: A New Mirror Comparing the Calligraphies of Beauties .

Also offered are a representative selection of beauty and actor prints from the 1790s and a group of drawings, prints, and paintings from the turn of the century by Katsushika Hokusai (1760‒1849). Of these, the most important is Telescope, long regarded as a masterpiece by the artist and one of three known specimens. A painting of Kumagai Naozane Riding Backwards on an Ox was last seen in public at an exhibition of Hokusai’s work organized by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun held in Moscow during the 1960s.

Kubo Shunman, a contemporary of Utamaro, was a painter deeply involved with the Edo poetry circles both as an artist and an author. He is represented in the exhibition by a fine painting on silk of a courtesan and her attendant with a cat.



SUZUKI HARUNOBU (1724−1770)

The Poem of Minamoto no Shigeyuki

Color woodblock print: chūban tate-e, 11 x 8⅛ in. (27.9 x 20.6 cm); ca. 1767‒68
Series: Untitled set of print illustrating the Sanjūrok’kasen (Thirty-six Immortals of Poetry)
Signed: Suzuki Harunobu ga

SUZUKI HARUNOBU (1724−1770)

Boys Playing Shadow Picture

Color woodblock print: chūban tate-e, 11⅜ x 8⅞ in. (28.9 x 22.5 cm); 1768‒69
Signed: Harunobu ga

IPPITSUSAI BUNCHŌ (act. ca. 1755–1792)

The Actor Ichikawa Yaozō II as Hayano Kanpei

Color woodblock print: hosoban, 12½ x 5¾ in. (31.8 x 14.6 cm); 4/1768
Signed: Ippitsusai Bunchō ga
Seal: Mori uji

TORII KIYONAGA (1752–1815)

Women Buying Potted Plants from a Street Vendor

Color woodblock print: ōban tate-e, 15¼ x 10⅜ in. (38.7 x 26.4 cm); circa 1784
Signed: Kiyonaga ga
Series: Beauties of the East as Reflected in Fashions (Fūzoku Azuma no nishiki)

KITAO MASANOBU, also known as SANTŌ KYŌDEN (1761–1816)

The Courtesans Hinazuru and Chōzan with Their Attendants, from Yoshiwara Courtesans: A New Mirror Comparing the Calligraphy of Beauties (Yoshiwara keisei: Shin bijin awase jihitsu kagami)

Color woodblock printed album, orihon, with original dark blue covers (some wear). Title slip missing; 15 x 10¼ in. (38.1 x 26 cm), 1 volume complete, early Spring, 1784, in blue cloth covered slip case.
Colophon: artist, Kitao Rissai Masanobu ga; Seals: Soseki and Masanobu no in; publisher Kōshōdō, Tsutaya Jūzaburō of Toriaburachō Minamigawa.

KATSUKAWA SHUNCHŌ (active ca. 1780–1800)

A Young Couple Makes Love Beside a Sleeping Woman

Color woodblock print: baiōban tate-e, 15 x 20⅛ in. (38.1 x 51.1cm); ca. 1785
Signed: Shunchō ga (on the fan)
Series: Twelve Tastes in the Classification of Passion (Shiki burui jūnikō)

KITAGAWA UTAMARO (1754–1806)

Gifts of the Ebb Tide (Shiohi no tsuto)

Color woodblock-printed album with highlights in mica, metallic pigments, gauffrage and mother-of-pearl; orihon, paper covers indigo decorated in gold wash with pine-shoots and stylized clouds, with original title slip Shiohi no tsuto black-on-buff paper; one vol. complete, 10¾ x 7⅝ in. (27.3 x 19.4 cm), comprising one sheet preface; one sheet landscape; six sheets poems and detailed images of shells; one sheet interior view; one sheet postscript and colophon; undated [1789].

KITAGAWA UTAMARO (1754–1806)

Takigawa of the Ōgiya, Onami, Menami (Ōgiya no uchi Takegawa, Onami, Menami)

Color woodblock print; ōban tate-e, 14¾ x 10 in. (37.5 x 25.4 cm); ca. 1794–95
Signed: Shōmei (the genuine) Utamaro hitsu
Seal: Honke
Series: Seven Komachis of the Green Houses (Seirō nana Komachi)
Publisher: Sen Sa (?)
Provenance: Adolphe Stoclet

HOSODA EISHI (1756−1829)

Standing Beauty with a Letter in Her Hand

Hanging scroll: ink, color, and gold pigment on silk, 30½ x 9¾ in. (77.5 x 24.8 cm); Kansei era, circa 1793−95
Signed: Eishi zu
Sealed: Kakei
Provenance: Hayashi Tadamasa

UTAGAWA KUNIMASA (1773–1810)

Iwai Kumesaburō I as Yae, the Wife of Sakuramaru

Color woodblock print, ōban tate-e, 14½ x 10 in. (36.8 x 25.4 cm); 1796
Signed: Kunimasa ga
Sealed: censor’s kiwame
Publisher: Uemura Yohei
Provenance: Hayashi Tadamasa, Werner Schindler

UTAGAWA TOYOKUNI (1769−1825)

Ichikawa Denkurō IV as Mitaya Genjirō

Color woodblock print: ōban tate-e, 15 x 9¾ in. (38.1 x 24.8 cm); 1799
Signed: Toyokuni ga
Censor’s seal: kiwame (approved)
Publisher: Sōkakudō (Tsuruya Kiemon)

KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760–1849)

Courtesan Walking Beside Two Odawara Lanterns

Impromptu painting, ink and light color on paper, 21½ x 15¼ in. (54.6 x 38.7 cm); ca. 1799
Signed: Hokusai sekiga
Sealed: Kinsei
Provenance: Werner Schindler

KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760–1849)

Telescope (Tōmegane)

Color woodblock print with mica: ōban tate-e, 14½ x 10 in. (36.8 x 25.4 cm); ca. 1801–4
Series: Fashionable Seven Bad Habits (Fūryū nakute nanakuse)
Signed: Kakō
Publisher: Kōshōdō (Tsutaya Jūzaburō II)
Provenance: Harry Packard; Edwin and Irma Grabhorn; Lee E. Dirks

KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760–1849)

Kumagai Naozane Riding Backwards on an Ox

Hanging scroll: ink and color on silk, 32 x 14 in. (81.3 x 35.6 cm); circa 1800–1802
Signed: Gakyōjin Hokusai ga
Sealed: Kimō Dasoku
Poem signed: Karagoromo Kitsujū; seal unread

KITAGAWA UTAMARO (1754–1806)

Peepshow (Nozoki-megane)

Color woodblock print: ōban tate-e, 15 x 10 in. (38.1 x 25.4 cm); circa 1802-3
Signed: Kansō Utamaro (Utamaro the physiognomist)
Publisher: Ten Types in the Physiognomic Study of Women (Fujin sōgaku juttai)
Publisher: Yamashiroya Tōemon

KUBO (KUBOTA) SHUNMAN (1757–1820)

Courtesan and Her Maid in an Interior

Hanging scroll: ink and colors on silk, 35¾ x 14 in. (90.8 x 35.6 cm); ca. 1795–1800
Signed: Shunman
Artist’s seal: Shunman
 Inscription signed: Jakuō at age seventy-seven (Nanajūnana rō Jakuō; Hori Jakuō, 1734–1814)
Sealed: Kikunyo and Shiranui hito [?]

UTAGAWA TOYOKUNI (1769–1825)

Bandō Mitsugorō III and Iwai Hanshirō V Rehearsing in the Green Room

Hanging scroll: ink, color, and gold pigment on silk, 20⅞ x 15 in. (53 x 38 cm); Edo period, Bunka era, circa 1810–12
Signed: Utagawa Toyokuni ga
Sealed: Ichiyōsai Toyokuni

UTAGAWA TOYOKUNI (1769–1825)

Ichikawa Danjūrō VII as Miura Ara Otokonosuke

Color woodblock print, ōban tate-e, 14½ x 10 in. (37.5 x 24.8 cm); 1/1813
Series: Untitled series of ōkubi-e portraits
Signed: Toyokuni ga