Utagawa Kunisada (Toyokuni III)

Courtesan Kumekichi

1858

Les Amateurs d'Estampes Woodcut, 1892 Initialed in the plate lower left Titled below image: "Gravure originale sur bois par F. Vallotton" Reference: Valloton and Goerg 107c, with the...

Shunga: Twelve Signs of the Zodiac - Goat Color woodcut with gauffrage (embossing) Unsigned (as usual) Format: Shikishiban Publisher: Privately produced Unusually well preserved with the fugitive blue still intact Image size: 5-1/8 x 5-3/4" Sheet size: 5 3/8 x 6 1/4" From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In this Japanese name, the surname is Isoda. Isoda Koryūsai (礒田 湖龍斎, 1735–1790) was a Japanese ukiyo-e print designer and painter active from 1769 to 1790. Life and career Koryūsai was born in 1735 and worked as a samurai in the service of the Tsuchiya clan. He became a masterless rōnin after the death of the head of the clan and moved to Edo (modern Tokyo) where he settled near Ryōgoku Bridge in the Yagenbori area. He became a print designer there under the art name Haruhiro in 1769, at first making samurai-themed designs. The ukiyo-e print master Harunobu died in 1770, and about that time Koryūsai began making prints in a similar style of life in the pleasure districts. Koryūsai was a prolific designer of individual prints and print series,[1] most of which appeared between 1769 and 1881. In 1782, Koryūsai applied for and received the Buddhist honour hokkyō ("Bridge of the Law") from the imperial court and thereafter used the title as part of his signature. His output slowed from this time, though he continued to design prints until his death in 1790. Works Koryūsai created a total of 2,500 known designs, or an average of four a week. According to art historian Allen Hockley, "Koryūsai may ... have been the most productive artist of the eighteenth century". The series Models for Fashion: New Designs as Fresh Young Leaves (Hinagata wakana no hatsumoyō, 1776–1781) ran for 140 prints, the longest known ukiyo-e print series of beauties. He designed at least 350 hashira-e pillar prints, numerous kachō-e bird-and-flower prints, a great number of shunga erotic prints, and others. Ninety of his nikuhitsu-ga paintings are known, making him one of the most productive painters of the period. Legacy Despite Koryūsai's productivity and popularity—both in his time and amongst later collectors—his work has attracted little scholarship. The first ukiyo-e histories written in the West in the 19th century elevated certain artists as exemplars; Koryūsai's work came to be seen as too indebted to Harunobu, who died in 1770, and inferior to that of Kiyonaga, whose peak period came in the 1880s. An example is Woldemar von Seidlitz's Geschichte des japanischen Farbenholzschnittes ("History of Japanese colour prints", 1897), the most popular of the early ukiyo-e histories, which paints Koryūsai as a successor to Harunobu and a rival of Kiyonaga in the 1770s who slipped into mediocrity and imitation of his rival by the end of the decade.[5] Interest lay mainly in the details of Koryūsai's life—a samurai who received court honours was unusual in the proletarian world of ukiyo-e. In 2021, contemporary woodblock printmaker David Bull...

Morita Kanya XIII As Genta Kagesue in the play Genta Kando Color woodcut, 1928 Signed and stamped middle right edge Natori stamp lower left image edge Series: Collection of Creative...

Inari Kozo Tasaburo- Kabuki Color woodcut, c. 1820 Signed: ‘Toyokuni’ Publisher: ‘Yamamoto Heikichi’ Censor: Hama and Magome Very good impression and color Sheet/Image size: 15 1/2 x...

Aliosky Garcia (Cuba, 1979) 'Ser y permanecer', 2013 woodcut on Guarro paper 29.5 x 38.8 in. (74.8 x 98.5 cm.) Edition of 10 ID: GAK-303 Hand-signed by author

Bold woodcut print by M. Sheppard (20th Century). This piece is filled with Neolithic imagery of people and animals. There are two figures that are engaged in hunting and several pre...

Alluring two-piece edo woodblock print of Japanese actors by Toyohara Kunichika (Japanese, 1835-1900). Titled, dated and signed on verso. Presented...

Beautiful late 19th century Japanese woodblock print diptych of two kabuki actors by Kunichika Toyohara (Japanese, 1835-1900). This pair of prints is united by a continuous landscape...