Hasui 巴水: Lakeside Shower, Matsue 湖畔の雨（松江）

Artist: Kawase Hasui (1883-1957) 川瀬巴水
Title: Lakeside Shower, Matsue 湖畔の雨（松江）
Date: 1932 (this edition ca late 1940s)

A grey rain falls softly from the low, dark clouds that loom overhead. A man poles his small wooden craft near the shore on Lake Shinji in Matsue, indifferent to the drizzle. The foreground has lovely patches of green, which then yield to brown reeds, then to the flat waters of the lake and then finally our eyes are drawn to the horizon the far shore, barely visible in the rain.  A tall deciduous tree dominates the left. This work has the round seal that was used after WWII in the late 1940s and early 1950s; this example is actually very nicely printed, with lots of textural subtlety and variety. In March of 2024 an example of this work with the same postwar seal was sold at Christie’s for $4032.

Condition: Excellent impression and color; very good condition. Verso has two tape remains and a strip of darker coloration on the left margin. Some soft waves to the upper paper.

Dimensions: ôban (26.5 x 39.4 cm)
Publisher: Watanabe Shôzaburô
Literature: Narazaki Muneshige, Kawase Hasui mokuhanga shu, 1979, p. 111, pl 333. Kendall Brown, Kawase Hasui: The complete woodblock prints, 2003, Vol. I, p. 91; Vol. II, p. 425, no. 269. Koyama Shuko, Beautiful Shin Hanga- Revitalization of Ukiyo-e, Tokyo Metropolitan Edo-Tokyo Museum, 2009, p. 176, no. 4-53. See the Art Institute of Chicago online, MFA Boston, National Museum of Asian Art.
Seal: Watanabe Shôzaburô  Signature: Hasui

SKU: HAS648