Hashiguchi Goyo

1880-1921

Woman with Hand Towel
(Tenugui moteru onna)

with silver mica ground, dated and signed, Taishokyunen jugatsu (Taisho 9 [1920], October), Goyo ga, with artist's round seal Hashiguchi Goyo, with family seal on lower left margin, Hashiguchi, published posthumously by the artist's nephew in the early 1950s

dai oban tate-e 18 1/8 by 11 7/8 in., 46 by 30.2 cm

At the time of Goyo’s sudden death in February 1921 (at the age of 41) he left unpublished prints in various stages of production. For this design, Goyo had already hand-colored a keyblock proof (in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession no. 50.870), upon which he wrote the name Hisae, identifying a Shinbashi district geisha as the model. While ill, Goyo instructed his student Fujiki Kikumaro on how to proceed, and apparently the print was completed shortly after his death.

References:
Kato Junzo, comp., Kindai Nihon hanga taikei, 1975-76, Vol. I, pl. 92
Lawrence Smith, The Japanese Print Since 1900: Old Dreams and New Visions, The British Museum, 1983, p. 41, no. 35 (incorrectly identified as Woman at a Hot Spring Resort)
Amy Reigle Stephens, gen. ed., The New Wave: Twentieth-century Japanese Prints from the Robert O. Muller Collection, 1993, p. 131, pl. 136 (test print)
Mitsunobu Sato, Hashiguchi Goyo ten, 1995, p. 96, no. 57
Amy Reigle Newland and Hamanaka Shinji, The Female Image: 20th Century Prints of Japanese Beauties, 2000, p. 44, pl. 19
Amanda T. Zehnder, Modern Japanese Prints: The Twentieth Century, Carnegie Museum of Art, 2009, p. 36
Koyama Shuko, Beautiful Shin Hanga- Revitalization of Ukiyo-e, Tokyo Metropolitan Edo-Tokyo Museum, 2009, p. 39, p. 1-48
Shin'ichiro Iwakiri, et. al., Seitan 130-nen Hashiguchi Goyo ten, 2011, p. 154, no. 402
Andreas Marks, Seven Masters: 20th Century Japanese Woodblock Prints from the Wells Collection, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2015, p. 61, no. 26

(inv. no. 10-2768)

price: $11,000