JAPANESE ART > FUKKOKU WOODBLOCK PRINTS > WOMAN RIDING A CRANE

Lot 00653
N.1 fukkoku woodblock print

Suzuki Harunobu

WOMAN RIDING A CRANE

Period: 1970s
Condition: very good
Size: 23 x 32 cm

SOLD

Elegant polychrome woodblock print by the ukiyo-e (浮世絵) artist Suzuki Harunobu (鈴木春信), printed for the first time around 1766-67 and known with the descriptive title "Woman of Pleasure Reading a Letter While Riding a Crane: Parody of Fei Changfang" (鶴に乗る遊女 見立費長房).

The work is based on the representations of the Chinese Buddhist monk Fei Changfang, known in Japan with the name Hichobo, riding a crane while reading a sutra (सूत्र) scroll and is an interesting testimony of the idealization of the women of the red light district Yoshiwara (吉原) in Edo (江戸), which Harunobu in his works presents as celestial creatures.

The print is presented here in a 1970s fine reprint on Japanese washi paper (和紙) made, as we read in the seal on the back, by the publisher Takamizawa Tadao (高見沢忠雄) and is in very good condition.

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