September 2021
Fine Japanese Paintings, Prints, and Illustrated Books of the Eighteenth Century
September 20‒30, 2021
(closed Sunday, September 26)
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
September 2021 Exhibition
Our fall exhibition offers a survey of ukiyo-e from the introduction of two-color printing in the 1740s up to the end of the eighteenth century. Paintings, woodblock prints, and illustrated books by Katsushika Hokusai (1760‒1849), artists of the Katsukawa School, and Kitagawa Utamaro (1754‒1896) are included. Suzuki Harunobu (1724–1770) is well represented, especially those examples of his oeuvre from the mid-1760s until his death in 1770, as are the theater prints and sumo wrestler portraits of Katsukawa Shunshō (1726‒1792) and Ippitsusai Bunchō (Act. 1755‒92). Japanese prints of this period were not just images of handsome actors and beautiful women, although many such prints appear in this exhibition. The backers and supporters of artists such as Harunobu were wealthy men with time on their hands, which they spent creatively in poetry circles amusing themselves writing witty verses which lampooned the hidebound rules of society. Their interests led artists to search the rich fields of classical literature in search of inspiration, which they cleverly employed to modernize satire.
Two paintings by Hokusai from the mid- 1790s are featured: Farmer Returning Home on His Horse, and Chōryō and Kōseki Kō. Hokusai painted these pictures in his mid- to late thirties, during the phase of his career known as his “Sōri” period from the name he used to sign his works after leaving the Katsukawa school. It was during this time of Hokusai’s life that he began fully to explore the immense range of themes and subjects available to him, ranging from episodes from Chinese and Japanese history, literature, and legend, to landscapes, avian and floral subjects, and pictures of elegant women.
Woodblock printed books have a long history, stretching back to the 16th century, but the creation of full-color printed books was still a recent phenomenon when Tsutaya Jūzaburō (1750–1797), Utamaro, and their associates published the “Insect Book” (Ehon mushi erami) in 1788. With fresh, vivid colors intact, the example included in the exhibition is a first edition in excellent condition, allowing us to experience the two-volume book in a state close to when it was first produced. A very fine first edition of Utamaro’s “Shell Book” (Shiohi no tsuto) will also be featured. A selection of works from the exhibition may be viewed here.
A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany this exhibition.
Courtesan and Her Maid Play with Hagoita (Shuttlecocks)
Color woodblock print, benizuri-e: dai-ōban tate-e, 17⅜ x 11 in.
Signed: Tanjōdō Ishikawa Shūha Toyonobu zu
Artist’s seal: Ishikawa uji and Toyonobu
Publisher: Tori Abura-chō Hōsendō
Maruya; sealed: [emblem] Yama, Maruko han (Maruya Kohei)
Two Actors as Female Mendicants Out for a Stroll
Color woodblock print, benizuri-e: dai-ōban tate-e, 16⅞ x 11⅞ in. (42.9 x 30.2 cm); circa 1751–52
Signed: Tanjōdō Ishikawa Shūha Toyonobu zu
Artist’s seal: Toyonobu
Publisher: Igaya Kan’emon (Bunkidō)
The Fudō Waterfall at Ōji
Color woodblock print:
Unsigned
Conceiver’s signature: Sakei kō
Conceiver’s seal: Suikō Sakei
Provenance: Edwin and Irma Grabhorn; Lee E. Dirks
The Poem of Ki no Tomonori
Color woodblock print: chūban tate-e, 11 x 8½ in. (27.9 x 20.3 cm);
Signed: Harunobu ga
Courtesan Admiring a Painting by Okumura Masanobu
Color woodblock print: chūban tate-e, 10⅞ x 7⅞ in. (27.6 x 20 cm);
Signed: Harunobu ga
Provenance: Henri Vever
A Courtesan Whispering to a Young Man
Color woodblock print: chūban tate-e, 10¾ x 8¼ in. (27.3 x 21 cm);
Signed: Suzuki Harunobu ga
Two Women Walking on a Windy Day
Color woodblock print: chūban tate-e, 10¾ x 8 in. (27.3 x 20.3 cm);
Signed: Harunobu ga
Evening Cool at the Iseya Teahouse
Color woodblock print: chūban tate-e, 10⅞ x 8⅛ in. (27.6 x 20.6 cm); 1768
Signed: Suzuki Harunobu ga
Catching Fireflies at Night
Color woodblock print: chūban tate-e, 11⅜ x 8½ in. (27.3 x 20.3 cm); 1767–68
Signed: Harunobu ga
Provenance: Louis V. Ledoux
Mother and Child Hanging a Mosquito Net
Color woodblock print: chūban tate-e, 11¼ x 8½ in. (28.6 x 21.6 cm); 1768
Signed: Harunobu ga
Ichikawa Danjūrō IV Disguised as a Travelling Monk
Color woodblock print: hosoban, 12¾ x 5⅝ in. (32.4 x 14.3 cm); 1770
Signed: Shunshō ga
Artist’s seal: Hayashi within a tripod jar cartouche
The Eastern Side: Sekiwake Nijigadake Somaemon of Awa, and Maegashira Fudenoumi Kin’emon from Kokura (Tōhō sekiwake Awa [no] Nijigadake Somaemon maegashira Kokura Fudenoumi Kin’emon)
Color woodblock print: ōban tate, 15¼ x 10¼ in. (38.7 x 26 cm); 1782–83
Signed: Shunshō ga
Publisher: Matsumura Yahei
Courtesans Enjoying the Cherry Blossoms of the Nakanochō
Hanging scroll: ink and white pigment on silk, 31⅞ x 11¼ in.
Signed: Kubo Shunman
Artist’s seal: Shunman
Inscription signed: Girō Sonoka sho; seals unread
Provenance: Japan Ukiyo-e Museum, Matsumoto
Six Jewel Rivers
Color woodblock prints: ōban tate-e hexaptych (incomplete, far right sheet missing), each
Signed: Kubo Shunman ga (a), Shunman (b–e)
Artist’s seal: Shunman
Publisher: Fushimiya Zenroku
(detail)
Picture Book of Crawling Creatures (Ehon mushi erami)
Illustrated poetry anthology: color woodblock-printed, with highlights in mica and blind-printing (karazuri); fukurotoji-bon (hybrid-pouch binding); covers with embossed textile weave, buff with brown-printed pattern of bellflowers and “seven-treasure” pattern, and with original title slips Ehon mushi erami, black-on-pink paper overprinted in red with a crimson trellis of birds and tendrils; two vols. complete, 10¾ x 7¼ in. (27.3 x 18.4 cm); [1788].
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].
KATSUKAWA SHUNCHŌ (Act. ca. 1783–95)
Okita of the Naniwaya (Naniwaya Okita)
Color woodblock print with mica background: ōban tate-e, 14¾ x 9⅞ in. (37.5 x 25.1 cm.); circa 1792–93
Signed: [Shunchō ga]
Publisher: [Tsuruya Kiemon (Senkakudō)]
Ohisa of the Takashimaya (Takashima Ohisa)
Color woodblock print with mica background: ōban tate-e, 14⅞ x 9¾ in. (37.8 x 24.8 cm.); circa 1792–93
Signed: Shunchō ga
Publisher: [Tsuruya Kiemon (Senkakudō)]
Sawamura Sōjūrō III as Ogishi Kurando
Color woodblock print: ōban tate-e, 15½ x 10⅛ in. (39.4 x 26.7 cm); 1794
Series: untitled series of half-length actor portraits
Signed: Shun’ei ga
Censor’s seal: kiwame (approved)
Publisher: Tsuruya Kiemon (Senkakudō)
Ichikawa Hikosaburō III as Ōboshi Yuranosuke
Color woodblock print: ōban tate-e, 15⅛ x 10 in. (38.4 x 25.4 cm); 1795
Series: untitled series of actor portraits
Publisher: Iwatoya Kisaburō (Eirindō)
Provenance: Manzi, sold Hotel Druout, Paris, 1921, lot 120; Henri Vever, sold Sotheby & Co. (1974), lot 138
Daidōzan Bungorō
Color woodblock print: ōban tate-e, 15⅛ x 10⅛ in. (38.4 x 25.7 cm); circa 1795
Signed: Shun’ei ga
Censor’s seal: kiwame (approved)
Publisher: Nishimuraya Yohachi (Eijudō)
Zhang Liang and Huang Shigong
(J. Chōryō and Kōseki Kō)
Hanging scroll: ink and slight color on paper, 45⅛ x 18½ in.
(114.5 x 47 cm); circa 1796
Signed: Eisai Sōshū ōju Hokusai Sōri ga (Pictured by Hokusai Sōri) on the order of Eisai Sōshū
Artist’s seal: Tokimasa (Tatsumasa)
Provenance: Japan Ukiyo-e Museum, Matsumoto
Farmer Returning Home on His Horse
Hanging scroll: ink and slight color on paper, 32¾ x 10½ in.
(83.3 x 26.6 cm); circa 1796
Signed: Hokusai Sōri ga
Artist’s seal: Tokimasa
Inscribed by calligrapher Inaba Kakei (1745‒1799)
Provenance: Japan Ukiyo-e Museum, Matsumoto
Komurasaki of the Miuraya and Shirai Gonpachi (Miuraya Komurasaki Shirai Gonpachi)
Color woodblock print: ōban tate-e, 15¼ x 10¼ in.
(38.7 x 26 cm); circa 1793–94
Series: True Feelings Compared: The Founts of Love (Jitsu kurabe iro no minakami)
Signed: Utamaro hitsu
Censor’s seal: kiwame (approved)
Publisher: Nishimuraya Chō
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Specializing in Japanese and Korean Art for the discriminating collector
