Artist: Itō Shinsui 伊東深水 (1898–1972), signed Shinsui with red artist's seal Title: Shūtei 秋庭 ("Autumn Garden") Edition: Woodblock version after a painting by Shinsui — published by the Momose Print Company, Tokyo Carver: Ōkura 大倉 · Printer: Chūjō 仲條 — credits printed in the right margin with the Momose edition mark Technique: Woodblock print (mokuhanga) on washi, Format: Horizontal ōban / dai-ōban, approx. 42 × 51 cm (please confirm exact dimensions) Date: c. 1960s–1970s Genre: Bijin-ga / shin-hanga tradition ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Paper & condition The colours are well preserved; the paper has taken on warm tones, having been framed at some time and since removed. The print still presents very well. Some faint foxing on the margins. Please check the images! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- About the print A beauty pauses in an autumn garden, a semi-transparent uchiwa fan painted with bellflowers held before her, amid a spreading clump of flowering bush clover (hagi) — the classic emblem of the season. What distinguishes this design is its painterly character: the free, spontaneous watercolour brushwork of Shinsui's original painting is reproduced with remarkable fidelity in the woodblock medium, the carver and printer capturing wet washes, fluid contour lines and soft colour gradations that conventional prints rarely attempt. The obi is enriched with metallic gold printing. This is the woodblock version of the composition: a limited edition cut and printed for the Momose Print Company of Tokyo after Shinsui's painting, with the carver Ōkura and printer Chūjō credited in the margin — a testament to the survival of the collaborative craft system into the late Shōwa era. These Momose editions were sold as a premium limited-edition series and are now available only on the secondary market. --------------------------------------------------- About the artist Itō Shinsui was one of the two great bijin-ga masters of the shin-hanga movement, alongside his teacher Kaburagi Kiyokata's other celebrated pupils, and a designer for Watanabe Shōzaburō from 1916. His beauties — refined, contemplative, unmistakably modern beneath their traditional dress — made him one of the most admired Japanese artists of the twentieth century, and he was ultimately honoured as an official holder of Japan's artistic heritage. His work is held in major collections worldwide.