This beautiful impression, depicting a temple pond in Japan at night, uses mica to create the shimmering water in the pond and the grain of the woodblock to emphasize the ripples of the water. Sekino focuses on edges, the corner of the pond, the edges that define the pond and the gateway to a temple in the background, all creating a quiet intimate composition.
Helen Merritt, in her book 'Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints - The Early Years' notes about Sekino's work:
"Once he acknowledged to himself that he was not at ease with nonobjective prints, he discovered his personal idiom in a simplified representational style...Essentially this is a carefully organized picture plane. Vertical and horizontal elements in the building relate harmoniously to the broad horizontal...with subtle asymmetrical balance...This is a distillation of the geometric and organic shapes that give the Japanese landscape its characteristic flavor."
This impression was purchased from T.Z. Shiota in San Francisco in the late 1950's.