雾中的春天 • Torii Kotondo • 日本木版画 • 新版画 - 日本 - 20世纪

TORII KOTONDO (1900–1976)
Haru no Oboro (春朧) — "Misty Spring"
From: Onna Jūnidai (Twelve Aspects of Women)
Original design: Shōwa 4 (1929) — this impression: Ishu Kankōkai, c. 1976–1978
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CONDITION

Excellent. A fresh, fully saturated impression with all the technical highlights of this design intact.

Printed on superb-quality handmade washi with full deckled edges and a wonderful, substantial hand-feel. The unprinted margins show a gentle, even cream-warm patina from undisturbed archival storage — the quiet tonal depth that only time produces on good washi, and that collectors specifically prize as evidence of original, unaltered condition. There is a toning/soiling spot on the backside.

Never framed, never light-exposed. All seals and credits bright and cleanly struck.

Sheet: c. 33 × 48.3 cm.

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THE DESIGN

A young woman pauses, half-turned away, her gaze drifting off to the right as cherry blossom petals fall through the misty spring air around her. Her hair is dressed in a full ichōgaeshi with the elaborate ornaments of a young unmarried woman — the pink silk ribbon, the red shibori bow, and the spectacular polychrome chrysanthemum hair pin — and the rich purple of her cherry-patterned kimono lifts the figure forward against the soft grey haze of the background.

Haru no Oboro — literally "spring haze" or "misty spring" — is one of the canonical seasonal moods of classical Japanese poetry, a phrase laden with associations of fleeting beauty, transience and quiet melancholy. Kotondo's image captures the mood without illustrating it: the woman's averted gaze, the falling petals, the soft atmospheric ground all combine into a portrait of a season rather than a person.

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PRESENTATION & STORAGE

The print is housed in a modern archival conservation folder of our own preparation.

The original Ishu Kankōkai presentation folders — both the inner viewing folder with windowed mat and the outer protective folder bearing the series and print titles in Japanese — will of course be included with the shipment, as they are part of the publication and belong with the print.

Our recommendation, however, is to keep the print stored in the modern conservation folder we provide and to retain the original folders separately as documentation. The vintage paper folders, while beautifully made, are now nearly fifty years old and no longer offer the same protection against humidity and acidity that a contemporary archival housing does. Following this approach preserves both the print and the originality of the publisher's housing.