Artist: Attributed to Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎, 1760–1849); so catalogued by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London Title: a court lady reading beside a flowering plum Source: Sansui Gacho ("Illustrated Album of Landscapes"), woodblock-printed book https://www.bakumatsuya.com/shop-description.php?ID=1534451033&La=E https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O488551/sansui-gacho-book-katsushika-hokusai/ Technique: Woodblock print, ink and colour on paper Date: 1835 Publisher: Kōgetsudō Bunsuke, Nagoya Format: Double book page (two conjoined leaves), approx. 15.7 × 22.6 cm per page ---------------------------------------------------------------- Condition Fair condition. The whole sheet presents well with some soiling and toning. Please check the images! ------------------------------------------------------- About the print A quiet interior spread from Sansui Gachō, an album published in Nagoya in 1835. A woman in loose white robes over pale orange, her hair worn long and unbound in the classical Heian manner, lies propped on one elbow before an open book on a low stand — the enduring image of the court poetess absorbed in reading. Around her the composition is built almost entirely from architecture: the ruled grids of the shōji, a plank veranda carried on posts over still water, a large white jar holding a plum branch. Outside, plum blossoms and pine needles are printed in a flat, cool blue that carries the whole sheet, the only other notes being salmon-pink woodwork and the stippled grey of the stone footings.