Ritual of Climbing the Stairs One Hundred Times (Ohyakudo), ca. 1765-66

Details

Suzuki Harunobu (1725?-1770)
Ritual of Climbing the Stairs One Hundred Times (Ohyakudo), ca. 1765-66
Woodcut of a young woman perfoming the ritual of climbing temple steps one hundred times, leaving a paper marker at the top of the stone stairs, the five markers left in her hand indicating she is on her 96th climb, unsigned second state of a calendar print (egoyomi) for 1765, here lacking the designations of long and short months in the obi and redesigned with fretwork--very good impression, slightly faded, smudging and random stains, minute repairs
chuban tate-e: 10 7/16 x 7¾in. (26.5 x 19.7cm.)

Provenance

Louis Gonse (1846-1921), Paris (red monogram seal on verso)

Literature

Vignier, Baudoin, Portier, auctioneers, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Collection Louis Gonse--Première Vente--Oeuvres d'Art du Japon, Choix d'Estampes et de Livres, Peintures--Maitres du 15e-19e siècle--Poteries, Japonaises, etc., 5 May 1924, lot 6, pl. II.

Ader, Picard, Tajan, auctioneers, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Art d'Extrême Orient, 17 December 1986, lot 292 (and cover illustration).
June Kinoshita and Nicholas Palevsky, Gateway to Japan, A Kodansha Guide (Tokyo and New York: Kodansha International, 1980), fig. 45.

Exhibited

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, "The Max Palevsky Collection of Japanese Woodblock Prints," 2001.2.8-5.15

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Lot Essay

For the first state, see Julia Meech and Jane Oliver, eds., Designed for Pleasure: The World of Edo Japan in Prints and Paintings, 1680-1860, exh. cat. (New York: Asia Society and Japanese Art Society of America in association with University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, 2008), fig. 56 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 11.19437) or access www.mfa.org/collections.

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