Skirt of Mount Fuji (February, from the Calendar for the Pacific Transport Lines, 1953)

 

Kawase Hasui

  1883 - 1957 (biography)

1952  

color woodcut 

9 1/2 x 14 3/8" image size 

"Hasui" signature with "Kawasi" red seal, lower right; signed with printed signature in Roman script in lower margin. 

500 

block titled in lower left 

Hotei 577, illustrated on page 584 

ivory laid Japanese 

published 

Pacific Transport Lines 

JELI102 

SOLD

This image is used to illustrate the month of February in this series for the calendar. This view may be in Shizuoka or Yaminashi prefectures. This work has not been reprinted after the initial edition of 500.

The Hotei/Hasui catalogue raisonné notes on page 131:

"Narazaki explains that 500 examples of this calendar were commissioned by the Pacific transport lines for distribution in the United States and that it was created within the time-honored tradition of meisho-e (pictures of famous views). He adds that while Hasui did not ordinarily undertake this type of work, the artist seems to have become quite engrossed in this project in an effort to convey a sense of the quintessential Japanese landscape." and "Both the publisher Watanabe Shozaburo and Hasui attached importance to the fact that these compositions were intended as souvenirs for foreigners."

The title and the artist's signature are printed in English in the margin. This impression is still attached at the top to the original card from the calendar.