Hashiguchi Goyo (1880-1921)
Signed: 'Goyo ga' (Pictured by Goyo)
Sealed: 'Hashiguchi Goyo'
With artist's family seal to the lower left margin 'Hashiguchi'
Dated: 'Taisho kyunen jugatsu' (October 1920)
45.7 x 30.3 cm. (18 x 11 ⅞ in.)
All impressions of this print were published posthumously. Goyo had already hand-coloured a keyblock proof (now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession no. 50.870), indicating the colours to be used in the final design. While ill, Goyo instructed his student Fujiki Kikumaro on what to do, and the print was completed after his death.
Depicted here is Hisae, a geisha from the Shinbashi district wiping the side of her face with a towel (her name is written on the towel itself). The print is beautifully executed, with a pale pink mica ground and metallic pigments and mica added to the wings of the butterflies on Hisae's black robe. The ring on her finger is also embellished with gold and silver pigments.
The Walter's Art Museum, Baltimore, also hold a pencil sketch by Goyo of the same portrait, go to: https://art.thewalters.org/object/35.305/
Dr. Gerhard Pulverer is a German medical researcher who worked at the University of Cologne. He bought his first Japanese woodblock prints in Kyoto in the 1970s while visiting Japan for a scientific conference. For more than thirty years, he and his wife Rosemarie travelled the world assembling a large collection woodblock prints and Japanese illustrated books (ehon). In forming the collection, he drew on the advice of highly regarded experts including Jack Hillier, C.H. Mitchell, Tim Clark and Ellis Tinios.
In 2007 the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, DC purchased the illustrated book collection. It is today regarded as one of the most outstanding and comprehensive collections of Japanese illustrated books outside Japan.
For an insightful interview with the collector by Ellis Tinios (on behalf of the Smithsonian National Museum of Art), go to: