Object of the Month - Japanese Brocade Prints
1st May 2024
At the same time as William Morris and John Ruskin were fighting back against a perceived decline in the British decorative arts, certain artists in Japan were struggling to keep the country’s tradition of woodblock printing alive.
The art form of ukiyo-e flourished in Japan from the 1670s, with ‘brocade prints’ of multiple colours becoming standard in the 1760s. These used a different woodblock for each colour, with the finest prints using ten or more woodblocks.
With the modernisation of technology during the second half of the 19th century, the process went into decline, and artists such as Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-92) began the fight to maintain the tradition. Many of Yoshitoshi’s works take ancient tales as inspiration, in the same way as British artists of the same period were revisiting medieval styles and conventions.
A fine Japanese album of woodblock ‘brocade prints’ includes his Fujiwara Yasumasa plays the flute by moonlight, a celebrated artwork that recalls a thousand- year-old tale of the Heian courtier at risk from the bandit, Kidomaru, who abandons his plan to kill Yasumasa when he is overcome by the beauty of his music. The album, one of a number of lots from Heath House in Hampshire, features in the Japanese and Korean Works of Art auction on Tuesday 21st May and includes works by Mizuno Toshikata (1866-1908), sometimes known as Yoshitoshi’s Successor. He became a disciple of the master in his teens and also became known for his work in illustrating modern literature. Other artists featured in the album include Ogata Gekko (1859-1920) and Migita Toshihide (1863-1925).
Several of the prints within the album are triptychs, or taken from triptychs, and many depict scenes from the 17th century Siege of Osaka with samurai in colourful costumes. The colours have stayed remarkably bright and look much as they would have done when the prints were created over a century ago. The pre-sale estimate is £8,000 – 12,000.
