Hasui 巴水: After the Rain at Sannô 山王の雨後 (SOLD)

Artist: Kawase Hasui 巴水 (1883-1957)
Title: After the Rain at Sannô 山王の雨後
Date: 1938

The rain has just stopped, leading the single visitor this Tokyo shrine to fold her umbrella. The paving stones are slick with rain, and the unfaded vermilion of the temple is glorious against the grey stones and green tree. This is a prewar view of Hie Shrine, which is known for the yearly Sanno Festival that still takes place in June. The view today is quite different, as this shrine building was lost to the bombing of Tokyo during WWII, and the present structure was rebuilt in 1958.  Here we can appreciate the best of Hasui, as we can put ourselves in the shoes (or geta) of the single visitor who has this magnificent shrine to herself. The Japanese consider this one of Hasui’s finest shrine scenes. Provenance: From the personal collection of the late Hasui scholar and curator Hisao Shimizu (1953-2020).

This work often contains two of Watanabe’s seals, as here, although this is a first edition, with the oblong copyright seal used between 1930 and 1942. We can see that Watanabe certainly still employed the round Watanabe seal for various purposes throughout the 30s, although he most often employed copyright seals in the margins at that time. The small, round Wa-ta-na-be round seal was used beginning in the 1920s until about 1924, and then again after the war. {See our article by Hisao Shimizu regarding this seal, as there seem to be many misconceptions about small differences in sizes intrinsically bearing some data in regards to dating the printing of Hasui’s works.}

Condition: Excellent impression, color and condition. Mint.
Dimensions: ôban 40 x 27.3 cm
Publisher: Watanabe ShôzaburIo
Literature: Irwin J. Pachter, Kawase Hasui and His Contemporaries: The Shin Hanga (New Print) Movement in Landscape Art, Everson Museum of Art, 1986, p. 74, pl. 88. Kato Junzo, comp., Kindai Nihon hanga taikei, 1975-76, Vol. III, no. 18. Kendall H. Brown, Kawase Hasui: The Complete Woodblock Prints, 2003, no. 427. Kendall H. Brown, Visions of Japan: Kawase Hasui's Masterpieces, 2004, no. 74. See Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art
Signature: Hasui

SKU: HAC427H