Yoshitoshi Tsukioka – Gravemarker Moon (Tsukioka Yoshitoshi – Sotoba no Tsuki)

Original woodblock print. The first edition of this design was published in 1886. The current print is from the Meiji period, but not a first edition.

Image size (excluding margins): 32.7 * 22.3 cm (12.9 * 8.8 in).

The print is in very good state, but there is a brown area on the back in the shape of an inverted U, that partly shines through to the front in the upper left sky. There are a few foxing spots in the title cartouche. The margins have been partially trimmed.

The colors have been retained very well and the print is an excellent impression.

The pictures shown here are from the print itself.

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Yoshitoshi Tsukioka (1839 – 1892) was a Japanese woodblock print artist. He worked in a time when modern techniques like photography where diminishing the importance of woodblock prints as a medium, but kept innovating and helped to succeed in keeping woodblock printing alive. While doing this, he produced some of the best prints of his era. His most well known series are One Hundred Aspects of the Moon and New Forms of Thirty-Six Ghosts.

An overview of the woodblock prints by Yoshitoshi Tsukioka can be found here.

See an overview of Yoshitoshi Tsukioka's woodblock prints