MOONLIGHT ON ARAKAWA RIVER, AKABANE

Catalog note / 解説

Offered for sale is a wonderful Japanese woodblock print by Kawase Hasui (1883-1957), titled Full Moon at Arakawa River, 1929. This print is illustrated at pl. 162 of Kawase Hasui Mokuhangashu (Kawase Hasui Catalogue of Woodblock Prints), Narazaki, Muneshige, ed., (Tokyo: Kodansha & Mainichi Shinbun, 1979). This is a post- war printing of this design, as it bears a red round Watanabe publisher's seal in the bottom left corner. However, the paper is consistent with that used in the late 1940s/early 1950s and there were also some first edition, late 1940s designs acquired in the same collection (and to be offered shortly on our website), so this is likely a very early post-war printing. This…