Artist: Asano Takeji (浅野竹二, 1900–1998) Series: Kyōraku meisho (京洛名所) — "Famous Places in and around Kyoto" Title: Higashiyama tsuki (東山月) — "Moon at Higashiyama"; pencilled Higashiyama in the lower margin Date: c. 1957 (Shōwa 32) Edition: First edition, hand-signed Signature: T. Asano in pencil, lower right margin; carved title and artist's inscription in the right-hand image margin Format: Shikishi-ban (near-square sheet), approx. 27.5 × 24.5 cm Technique: Nishiki-e (colour woodblock) on washi ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Paper & condition Excellent. Full margins, unfaded, unbacked, no folds or foxing. The colours are noticeably richer in hand than any photograph conveys. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- About the print Kyoto after dark, seen from above. The five-storied pagoda of Hōkan-ji — the Yasaka pagoda, at roughly 46 metres the last surviving structure of its temple and the fixed landmark of the whole Higashiyama quarter — stands as a flat black silhouette against a graded blue sky, and everything else in the sheet is arranged around it. Behind, the Higashiyama ridge is printed in two overlapping blue tones with a soft bokashi gradation at the horizon. Below, the tiled roofs of the machiya run down the slope in blue-grey planes, packed tight against banks of dark foliage. The moon is the one piece of untouched paper in the design, a pale disc left in reserve while the surrounding sky was printed around it, and the grey cloud bands are cut as loose curling shapes that break the flatness of the blue without competing with it. Not to be confused with the ōban Yasaka pagoda night design Asano produced for the Kyoto publisher Unsōdō, which is still being reprinted today. This is a sheet from his own hand-printed shikishi series, signed in pencil.