November 2019

Important Eighteenth Century Japanese Prints

Exhibiting at

TEFAF NY
Stand 369
November 1–5, 2019

Sebastian Izzard LLC Asian Art will participate again at TEFAF-NY Fall to be held at the Park Avenue Armory November 1–5, 2019. On view will be a fine selection of Japanese figural prints dating from the introduction of two-color printing in the 1740s until the end of the eighteenth century. The exhibition is particularly rich in works by Suzuki Harunobu and encompasses fine examples of his oeuvre from the early 1760s until his death in 1770. Prints depicting sumo wrestlers by Katsukawa Shunshō, a double portrait of actors by Tōshūsai Sharaku, and rare works by Utagawa Toyokuni and Kitagawa Utamaro—including his iconic Wistful Love from the series Anthology of Poems of the Theme of Love, once in the collection of Hayashi Tadamasa—will also be featured. One of Hokusai’s rarest prints, the double head portraits of women representing the bad habit of blowing ground cherry pits to produce an annoying squeaking sound, from the series Seven Fashionable Bad Habits that Hokusai completed in the first years of the nineteenth century, is a highlight of the exhibition. Of the seven prospective prints in this series only two were made.  Today one image is known in three copies, and this example, from the famed collection formed by the San Francisco fine printer and publisher Edwin Grabhorn, is known in only two impressions. A full-color catalogue will accompany the exhibition.

To view the artworks in full size with captions, click on the large image and use the left and right arrow keys to go forward and backward. Click on the "×" on the right upper corner to exit full size viewing.