Mokuhankan Spring Woodblock Matsuri!

Affordable woodblock prints, new and old ...

It has been a few months since our previous Flea Market Matsuri, and our team of 'print hunters' has again come up with a group of interesting items for this section of our online catalogue.

Some of the mid-20th century classical reproductions you will have seen here before - we always have many Tokaido prints, for example - but the selection this time also included a number of more unusual items.

Dave Bull, Mokuhankan

The prints in this week's selection fall into a few basic categories:

 

Beauties

No matter what the era, producing prints of beautiful women was always high in the priorities of the publishers. In the days before magazines and movies, the prints served as 'fashion plates', letting women of all social classes learn about the latest trends and clothing styles.

 



Landscape

In a time before the invention of powered vehicles, travel around the country was of course difficult and not something available to most people. But there was huge interest in 'far-off places' and the publishers fed this with a steady stream of landscape designs, both imaginary, and realistic.

 



Nature

The genre known as kacho-ga ('flower-bird' pictures) was another mainstay of the woodblock print world. Frequently incorporating poetic references, and always seasonal ones, such designs closely matched Japanese aesthetic sensibilities.

 



General interest

 




Mokuhankan Flea Market :
(All items)  general (70)   kacho-e (23)   yakusha-e (29)   landscape (103)   bijin-ga (81)   nihonga (6)   sosaku (0)   kuchi-e (0)   contemporary (0)   set (39)   books (5)    [ List of Recently sold items ]