Itô Shinsui (1898-1972)
A young beauty dressed in the chic of the late 1950s, a fashionable beret on her ponytail coiffure, applying lipstick in front of a pocket mirror. In the background, on an abstract-modern wallpaper, a wall clock by the watch manufacturer Hotta can be seen.
Title / Series: "Tokei to bijin" (Watches and Beauties) - No. IV
Signature: Shinsui
Seal: Shinsui
Publisher: Hotta watch company, printed by Watanabe, Tokyo
Date: 1964
Size: Vertical Ôban, 24,5 x 36,6 cm (image size)
Excellent impression, with shiny gold pigment for lipstick and hand mirror. Colours overall very good, mat/light-stain at borders. Very good to excellent condition.
This last bijin series by Shinsui combines (in four images) feminine beauties from the Edo period to the mid-20th century with period-clocks. It was designed for the Hotta Corporation, established in 1879 and still in existence.
Ill. in Watanabe Tadasu, Ito Shinsui. All the Woodblock Prints, 1992, pp. 216 and 255, no. 147; Amy Reigle Newland, Hamanaka Shinji, The female image. 20th century prints of Japanese beauties. Tokyo/Leiden 2000, p. 83, ill. 101.
Cf. also Honolulu Museum of Art, no. 25367; Freer Sackler, Muller Coll., no. S2003.8.318; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, no. 2015.414; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, no. 2018.207; Art Institute of Chicago, Gookin Coll., no. 1998.425
sold