• Heron Maiden (<i>Sagi Musume</i> - 鷺娘) - Winter (<i>fuyu</i> 冬) from the series <i>Shiki bijin</i> ('Beauties of the Four Seasons' - 四季美人?)
Heron Maiden (<i>Sagi Musume</i> - 鷺娘) - Winter (<i>fuyu</i> 冬) from the series <i>Shiki bijin</i> ('Beauties of the Four Seasons' - 四季美人?)
Heron Maiden (<i>Sagi Musume</i> - 鷺娘) - Winter (<i>fuyu</i> 冬) from the series <i>Shiki bijin</i> ('Beauties of the Four Seasons' - 四季美人?)

Kitano Tsunetomi (北野恒富) (artist early 1880s - mid 1940s)

Heron Maiden (Sagi Musume - 鷺娘) - Winter (fuyu 冬) from the series Shiki bijin ('Beauties of the Four Seasons' - 四季美人?)

Print


1925
14.25 in x 21.25 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Tsunetomi hitsu (恒富筆)
Publisher: Nezu Seitarō (根津清太郎)
Printer: Matsuno Kassui (摺松野活水)
Carved by: Chōkoku: Yamana Yoshimitsu
(彫刻:山名良光)
Seal at bottom center: Go...dai
'Not numbered'
Harvard Art Museums
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Legion of Honor, San Francisco
National Museum of Asian Art - from the Robert O. Muller Collection
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Portland Art Museum
Lyon Collection - another version of this print by Tsunetomi
St. Louis Art Museum "Wraith prints" such as this were made in the few years immediately following the great earthquake of of 1923. The women represent ideals of ethereal beauty and self sacrifice as direct contrast to prints of more modern, physical, and realistic women ("moga"). - K. Brown

During the 1980s, the Japanese publisher Ishukankokai recarved the blocks for Heron Maiden and issued a posthumous edition, also limited to 100 prints - publisher information is printed in the left margin in this later edition.

****

Illustrated:

1) in black and white in 近代日本美人画展 : 伝統木版画を支えた作家たち Exhibition of Modern Japanese Beauties: Meiji, Taishō, Shōwa, Riccar Art Museum, 1982, n.p., no. 64.

2) in color in Burlington Magazine, vol. 153, #1296, March 2011, n.p.

3) color in The Female Image: 20th century prints of Japanese beauties, Abe Publisher, 2000, #108, p. 87.

4) in black and white in Light in darkness : women in Japanese prints of early Shôwa (1926-1945); curators, Kendall H. Brown, et al., Fisher Gallery, University of Southern California, 1996, p. 51.

****

There is another copy of this print in the St. Louis Museum of Art.

****

Of the examples linked above only the copy at Harvard has a red seal just below the signature in the upper right corner. All of the others are like this example in the Lyon Collection.

****

Notice the palely printed branches of a willow tree trailing down on her sleeve. Note also that it is an obaiban (大倍判) or 'double oban' in size.
Nezu Seitarō (根津清太郎) (publisher)
Kyōto-Osaka prints (kamigata-e - 上方絵) (genre)
beautiful women (bijin-ga - 美人画) (genre)
modern prints (shin hanga - 新版画) (genre)
mitate-e (見立て絵) (genre)
Taishō era (大正時代) (genre)