Ukiyo-e Prints

浮世絵版画

HIROSHI YOSHIDA

吉田博

よしだひろし

1876-1950

"PORTRAIT OF A BABY BOY"

"KODOMO"

こども

Size: 22 1/4" x 17 1/2"

Date: 1927

Showa Ni Nen Saku

昭和二年(Saku)

しょうわにねんさく

Edition Size: 80

Top Seal on Right:

Jizuri

自摺

じずり

Self-printed

Block Carver: Mayeda

Condition:

Somewhat toned, but otherwise in good condition.

 $1,850.00

I have always been troubled by my failure to grasp the sense of scale when looking at isolated images in books or on-line. There is a wonderful little portrait head by Madrazo or Fortuny in the Walters, I believe. In a full page reproduction in a book it looks absolutely monumental. But in reality it is miniscule --- just a few inches by a few inches. I kid you not.

I had known the print shown above for years from the catalogue on Yoshida. In the catalogue with its smallish, but decent, reproduction the head of the baby looked like it was at the least a lithographic element or at most a photogravure insert. Too realistic to be a woodcut. But as you can see from the large image on this page it is indeed a woodcut.

I jumped at the opportunity to purchase one of these masterpieces. What I was not prepared for was its size. Oh yeah, I could read the dimensions and I could make a template, but it is never the same thing until you have the actual item before you. (I must lack the gene of true extrapolation.)

When you go camping and you read that a mountain is 14, 237 feet high and even if you have seen photos of it it just isn't they same until you sweat and ache getting to the top or collapse that night into your sleeping bag almost on the edge of delirium. So it is with oversized prints --- at least for me.

Usually one finds an image being photographed with something familiar next to it like a dime to give the viewer a sense of scale. Just look at some of the examples on e-Bay. A 7' vase just isn't the same until you have a normal sized person posing beside it. That is why I have added the image below --- so you will believe me and get a little bit of the thrill I do. (Oh yeah, and maybe sometimes I wear a size 9 extra wide.)