Designer: Anonymous | Carver: David Bull | Printer: Ayumi Ohashi

Size: 15.5cm by 11cm | Enlargement | Shipping Code: [HC] ? | Currency: $ / £ / €

Price: $ 40.00£ 31.25€ 36.25 [Reprinting]

Description: This is a design 'stolen' from a kimono pattern book issued in Meiji 31 (1898). Of course, in that era there was no standard colour printing, and the only way for a kimono fabric maker to distribute sample patterns to kimono shops around the country was by means of woodblock printing

The book contains hundreds of pages, all full-colour printed like this, and must have cost an absolute fortune to produce ... Although I suppose back then such craftsmen were a 'dime a dozen' ...

The image is one that doesn't need much explanation - the concept of the fish swimming upstream, or leaping against the current is an obvious metaphor for successful struggle. Although as this fish is leaping from the sea, rather than a swift river, one wonders ...