Half Moon Bridge

Date:: 1941
Medium:: Woodblock print
Format:: Oban
Publisher:: Yoshida Studio
Source:: Japanese Art Open Database

Typical Price

From Yoshida's later career (1935–1950), these prints show his technical mastery at full maturity. Later-decade prints slightly trail peak-period 1920s works at auction, but jizuri impressions of desirable subjects still command strong prices. Standard jizuri Japanese landscapes follow the dealer benchmark of approximately $2,149; Sacred Bridge, Nikko (1937) sold for $800 at Schmidt's Antiques for a pencil-signed example.

Jizuri (artist-supervised) seal: $1,200–$3,500
Studio edition (no jizuri): $600–$1,800
Posthumous/family workshop reprint: $250–$700

Description

Half Moon Bridge — likely a curved stone or wooden bridge whose perfect semicircular arch completes a full circle when reflected in still water below — is the subject of this 1941 print with its moonlight tag. The composition plays on a beloved visual conceit in East Asian garden and landscape art: the bridge arch and its reflection forming a complete moon shape in the water. Yoshida's mastery of reflected light gives the nocturnal composition its luminous quality, the moon's position in sky and water simultaneously fixed.