Man holding Plum Branch and Prancing Child

Catalog note / 解説

No recorded original This is a copy of a surimono, a so-called Akashi copy, named after the Japanese town where they were faithfully reproduced in the 1890s. Many of these copies (the 'copy-A' versions) show the same elaborate printing techniques as the originals of the early 19th century. That is why they were taken for originals as late as into the 1970s. It was only in the ground-breaking publication of Roger Keyes, THE ART OF SURIMONO, that their existence was documented for the first time. Original surimono were often commissioned by poetry circles and privately published. Surimono represent the peak in Japanese woodblock printing techniques. Their costly production resulted in very li…