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A Beautiful Aizuri-e Eisen Print of a Geisha Edo browse these categories for related items... All Items: Japanese: Woodblock Prints: Beauties: Pre 1900: item #972070 Please refer to our stock #ICHI 1263 when inquiring.
SOLD - 2250.00 |
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This is a striking Aizuri-e blue print of a Geisha sitting on a low bench as if waiting for a a client or for another Geisha to go their local Geisha house. Her kimono is extremely ornate and is superbly drawn as are her hair pieces, her obi and the bench on which she sits. Behind her is a picture of Mt. Fuji in a circular frame and a hanging cloth with kanji characters on it. The print measures 22 by 17 ½ in the frame and the image is 15 ½ by 11 ½. It has been museum mounted in a double mat and a very fine silvered wood frame. It is in excellent condition with no toning, tears or foxing. Registration and color are near mint. It was published by Tsuto-Ya Kichizo and dates from the late Edo period, circa 1840s. It is signed "Eisen-Ga"( painted by Eisen). - Eisen's real name is Keisai Eisen. Keisai Eisen (1790 1848) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist who specialized in bijinga (pictures of beautiful women in which he portrayed the subjects as more worldly than those depicted by earlier artists, replacing their grace and elegance with a less studied sensuality. His best works, including his ōkubi-e ("large head pictures"), are considered to be masterpieces of the "decadent" Bunsei Era (18181830). He was also known as Ikeda Eisen, and wrote under the name of Ippitsuan. Aizuri-e literally means blue printed picture. Introduced in part as a response to sumptuary laws which limited the number of colors that could be used in a print, it also was commercially successful, in part because it became fashionable because of the Japanese fascination with new things. Hence aizuri-e, pictures in this technique. The term usually refers to Japanese woodblock prints that are printed entirely or predominantly in blue. When a second color is used, it is usually red. Even if only a single type of blue ink was used, variations in lightness and darkness (value) could be achieved by superimposing multiple printings of parts of the design or by the application of a gradation of ink to the wooden printing block (bokashi). Aizuri: Literally, "blue printing"; a later artistic effect in which the color blue (typically the newly introduced imported Prussian blue, also called Berlin blue - hence its Japanese name of berorin burau - which was a brighter and longer-lasting pigment than the fugitive native vegetable blue) predominates.
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