Ohara Koson (小原古邨) / Shōson (祥邨) (artist 1877 – 1945)

The Snow on Willow Bridge (Yanagi-bashi no Yuki [柳橋の雪]) on the Sumida River

Print

---

Date:1927 – 1932
Dimensions:10.24 in x 15.16 in (Overall dimensions) Medium:Japanese color woodblock print
Inscription:Signed: Shōson (祥邨)
Seal: Shōson
Publisher: 版元渡邊版畫店 (Watanabe [Shōzaburō] print store) - used between 1927-32
Links Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - early seal used from 1924-30: 版権所有渡邊庄三郎 [copyright reserved, Watanabe Shōzaburō]
Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna
Yale University Art Gallery
Chazen Museum of Art
National Museum of Asian Art
Google maps - Yanagibashi district near the confluence of the Kanda and Sumida rivers, Tokyo
Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art
San Diego Museum of Art
Cleveland Museum of Art
Royal Ontario Museum
Rijksmuseum - the same early publisher's seal as in the MFA
University of Michigan
Honolulu Museum of Art
Art Institute of Chicago
Smart Museum of Art, the University of Chicago
National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo - small color image
Los Angeles County Museum of Art - dated 1927 Description:According to the Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna this bridge was at or near the confluence of the Kanda and Sumida rivers in Tokyo. (See the link to Google maps above to see this area.) As it turns out there were two bridges given the name Yanagibashi. Because of this confusion, the older one came to be known as the Moto-Yanagibashi or 'Real Yanagibashi'. However, as of now, I am unable to determine which one Shōson intended here.

****

Illustrated:

1) In color on page 159 in Crows, Cranes & Camellias. The Natural World of Ohara Koson 1877-1945 by Amy Reigle Newland.

2) In Modern Japanese Prints by Dorothy Blair, #194.

3) In color reproduction in Fresh Impressions: Early Modern Japanese Prints, p. 201.

4) In Ukiyoe Museums in Japan (Nihon no ukiyoe bijutsukan - 日本の浮世絵美術館), vol. 3, p. 35. This example is from the collection of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.

5) In a black and white reproduction in Catalogue of the Collection of Japanese Prints Part V - The Age of Yoshitoshi, Rijksprentkabinet/Rijksmuseum, 1990, no.148, p. 103. On pages 103-104 it says: "Two women with an umbrella crossing a bridge over the Sumida river in a heavy snowfall. This is the famous Yanagibashi (the Willow Bridge) over the Kanda river near the point where it flows into the Sumida river. Though this print dates from Koson's later period, which is generally considered to be of a lesser artistic level, this subject - unusual in his oeuvre - in its great simplicity and effective use of only a few colours, is one of his most beautiful works."

6) In color in a detail on a full-page illustration - page 34 - and in a small black and white reproduction, Figure 109 on page 81, in Shin-Hanga: New Prints in Modern Japan by Kendall H. Brown and Hollis Goodall-Cristante, Los Angeles Museum of Art with the University of Washington Press, 1996. Dated ca. 1930 and entitled 'Two Women Crossing a Bridge on a Snowy Day'.

7) in black and white in Ukiyo-e: Japanische Farbholzschnitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, Schenkung Dr. Hans Lühdorf. Bilder einer fließenden vergänglichen Welt., Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf im Ehrenhof, 1990, #325, page 174.

****

Originally printed in an edition of 300.

****

There are other copies of The Snow on Willow Bridge in the Toledo Museum of Art, the San Diego Museum of Art, the Hachinohe Clinic Machikado Museum, the Rietberg Museum, the Worcester Art Museum and in the Sydney University Art Collection.
Related entities Watanabe Mokuhan Bujitsu Gahō (渡邊木版美術画舗) (publisher)
landscape prints (fūkeiga 風景画) (genre)
modern prints (shin hanga - 新版画) (genre)
Shōwa era (昭和時代) (genre)

---