Kawase Hasui – Futatsu Hall, Nikko (Hasui Kawase – Nikko Futatsudo)

Original woodblock print. The first edition of this design was published in 1929. The current print is from an edition of the Shobisha issued prints, estimated to have been printed in the later decades of the Showa period.

This Kawase Hasui print is part of a group of designs he first made around 1930 for the publisher cooperation Sakai-Kawaguchi. The woodblocks were destroyed during the war however, and after the war the rights for the design were transferred to publisher Shobisha, who has republished the designs from the 1950s onward with newly carved blocks. Kawase Hasui was involved in this process and the prints are originals, but the listing of the date of the first edition could be debated. Within the woodblock print community the years of the initial designs are used and that is followed here.

Image size (excluding margins): 36.0 * 23.8 cm (14.2 * 9.4 in).

The print is in good state. The paper is strong but slightly sturdy, and there are wrinkles in the margins, mainly in the lower margin. In the left margin there are two pinholes. The paper has aged, especially at the outer edge of the margins, and there are remnants of a previous mounting on the back.

The pictures shown here are from the print itself.

References: K.H. Brown, Kawase Hasui. The Complete Woodblock Prints, nr. 188, 2003, p. 379.

See an overview of Kawase Hasui's woodblock prints