New Moon

Date:: 1941
Medium:: Color woodblock print
Format:: Oban
Dimensions:: 39.5 × 26.8 cm
Publisher:: Yoshida Studio
Source:: Art Institute of Chicago

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

A slender crescent moon rises over what appears to be a coastal or harbour scene in this 1941 print — the new moon providing just enough reflected light to illuminate water surfaces, boat masts, or the silhouettes of landscape features while leaving the scene predominantly in the cool darkness of night. Yoshida was drawn to moonlight throughout his career, but the new moon, with its minimal light and its implication of a sky otherwise filled with stars, presented a more extreme technical challenge than the full moon scenes for which he was better known. The darkness itself becomes the subject, punctuated by the thin arc of new-moon light and whatever reflections it creates on water below.