Yaba Valley (Yabake)

Date:: 1918 (Taishō 7)
Medium:: Modern Japanese woodblock print; ink and color on paper
Format:: Oban
Dimensions:: 36.5 × 49.5 cm
Publisher:: Watanabe Shozaburo
Edition:: Published by Watanabe Shozaburo
Source:: Harvard Art Museums

Typical Price

With only 14 completed designs, all Goyo prints are intrinsically scarce. Non-bijin subjects (landscapes, still life) tend toward the lower end of his market but remain far above typical shin-hanga prices. Christie's estimated his "Mount Ibuki in Snow" at $5,000–$10,000 in early 2026.

Later impressions: $1,000–$3,000
Good impressions: $3,000–$8,000
Exceptional impressions: $8,000–$20,000

Description

Yaba Valley — "Yabake" — rendered in Goyo's 1918 landscape print as a composition emphasizing the dramatic verticality of the gorge landscape in Oita Prefecture. The valley's sheer limestone walls, carved by the Yamakuni River over millennia, offered Goyo a landscape subject of entirely different character from his Mount Ibuki snow scenes: where the mountain spread horizontally across the sky, the gorge rises vertically, compressing the viewer's spatial experience into a narrow corridor of rock, water, and sky.