Risshu (The Start of Autumn), from the series Fuzoku shiki kasen (The Series of Popular Versions of the Immortal Poets in the Four Seasons), 1768

Details

Suzuki Harunobu (1725?-1770)
Risshu (The Start of Autumn), from the series Fuzoku shiki kasen (The Series of Popular Versions of the Immortal Poets in the Four Seasons), 1768
Woodcut set within a room just off a veranda of a courtesan fresh from the bath, her striped robe slipped casually off her left shoulder and held loosely by her child attendant as both are distracted by something outside; the red rooftops decorated with bamboo branches and green branches strung with poem slips suggest the Tanabata Festival on the seventh day of the seventh month, the event mentioned in the poem above in the cloud cartouche when the separated lovers the Herd Boy and Weaver Girl meet across the span of the Milky Way; a tasseled kiriko lantern for the festival hangs from the eave, the suspended cloth enhanced by embossing--very good impression, original color faded and minute foxing though the general condition appears good
chuban tate-e: 10¾ x 8in. (27.5 x 20.5cm.)
The poem reads:

Asakaranu
chigiri koso omou
Amanogawa;
ose wa toshi no
hitoyo naredomo

Joined in the River of Heaven
only once a year
reminds me how tenuous
is my own troth.

The Start of Autumn represents the seventh month in a set of thirteen prints devoted to the twelve months (there are two prints for the fourth month).

Provenance

Henri Vever (1854-1943), Paris (red seal lower left)

Literature

Jack Hillier, Japanese Prints and Drawings from the Vever Collection, vol. 1 (London and New York: Philip Wilson Publishers, Rizzoli International and Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1976), pl. 137.

Jack Hillier, Suzuki Juzo and Adachi Toyohisa, Ukiyoe: Beberu korekushon (Ukiyo-e from the Vever Collection) (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai shinbunsha, 1976), no. 119.

Sotheby's, London, Highly Important Japanese Prints from the Henri Vever Collection: Final Part, 30 October 1997, lot 20.

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 impression in Keio University (Takahashi Seiichiro Collection), see Chiba City Museum of Art and Hagi Uragami Museum of Art, eds., Seishun no ukiyoeshi Suzuki Harunobu--Edo no kararisuto tojo Suzuki Harunobu, Ukiyo-e artist of the Springtime of Youth: Entry on Stage of the Edo Colorist, exh. cat. (Chiba and Hagi: Chiba City Museum of Art and Hagi Uragami Museum, 2002), pl. 188. For the impression in the British Museum (1907,0531,0.25) access www.britishmuseum.org or see Narazaki Muneshige and Yamaguchi Keizaburo, eds., Daiei Hakubutsukan... The British Museum... (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1979), no. 236. Another example sold in these Rooms, 18 March 2008, lot 75. For the Vever impression, see Yamaguchi Keizaburo, Gime Toyo Bijutsukan, Pari Kokuritsu Toshokan Musée Guimet, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Henri Vever Collection, Huguette Berès Collection, vol. 12 of Ukiyoe shuka (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1980), pl. 121.

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