Item from the Mokuhankan Flea Market

Musashino (set of 3)

Size: 29.5cm by 19.5cm (11.61 in by 7.68 in) | Enlargement | Shipping Code: [L] ?

Designer: Kitagawa Utamaro

Era: Post-war | Currency: $ / £ / €

Price: ¥ 18,000$ 130.00£ 100.00€ 119.00 [Item has been sold]

Description: These prints date from the 1970s/80s, and were made by the Kajikawa workshop, which was hired to produce a folio containing 20 triptychs (60 prints all). They were made at a reduced size (29.5 x 19.5cm) from the original Edo-era prints, which were in the large o-ban format.

This charming triptych shows a parody of a scene from the 12th section of 'The Tales of Ise' where a man kidnaps a woman and hides her in Musashino Province, in a field of tall flowering grass. To pay for his crime, the local authorities pursue him, and in order to force him out from hiding they go out with torches and are about to set fire to the field.

In this Utamaro’s design, the interpretation is more romantic, instead of the scary pursuers he designed elegant women carrying paper lamps rather than torches. It feels like they are going out for a nocturne walk to enjoy the moonlight. We can assume that the young samurai crouching and covering his head in a cloth is the kidnapper, though she had been kidnapped, the young woman dressed in a black kimono, shelters him under her large sleeve. The scene takes place in a field of thickly growing pampas grass visible in the background together with an enormous moon. The moon is dusted with muscovite to give it a glittering effect.

Please note that the prints are lightly glued to a mat paper with three windows, and will be shipped folded.

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