Designer: Tsuchiya Koitsu | Publisher: Doi Hanga

Paper size: 37cm by 17cm | Enlargement | Currency: $ / £ / €

Price: $ 350.00£ 280.00€ 325.00 [Reprinting]

Description: The Doi Hanga prints you see in this section of our web site are all designs originally created in the early 20th century, and first published by the Doi Hanga Company at that time.

The original blocks have remained in the possession of the Doi family since those days. When they resumed business activities in the immediate post-war period, carver Harada-san worked for them reconditioning many of the oldest blocks and replacing worn ones, in order that more prints could be made.

Over the subsequent years, a string of different printers were retained by the Doi company for this work. The company is now in the hands of Mrs. Kōzu (grand-daughter of the founder), and she is both selling prints from their previous inventories (as long as they last), and retaining printers to pull new editions from the blocks.

In our current inventory we have examples (in chronological order) from : Yokoi, Itō, Hamano, and Seki (all long gone), Itakura (now retired), as well as Yamamoto and Okada (contemporary young printers).

The print you are currently looking at was made by one of these men.

[ In addition to these Doi-published prints, we also have here at Mokuhankan prints pulled by our own printers using Doi blocks (we of course pay them a royalty for this). Those are included in this section of the site. ]

This particular batch of prints is quite rare, and I (Dave) never expected to have any of these. As you can see, they are from the Yokoi workshop (now long long closed). Yokoi-san had the very highest reputation, and none of the current shops can come ever remotely close to his quality level.

The paper also shows the age (and rarity) of this print. It carries a watermark with the character for the 'Do' in Doi Hanga's name. The papermaker would have prepared a dipping screen just for the Doi orders. This kind of thing is completely no longer possible ...