Sanhu Island

Date:: 1941
Medium:: Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
Format:: Oban
Dimensions:: 20.5 × 26.7 cm
Publisher:: Yoshida Studio
Source:: Minneapolis Institute of Art

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

Sanhu Island — one of the scenic formations encountered during Yoshida's wartime travels through China and Southeast Asia — appears in this 1941 print as an island landscape rendered with the atmospheric sensitivity that defined his mature work. The coastal or riverine setting frames the island's profile against a sky and water that Yoshida handles with his characteristic gradation technique, the color shifting through registers too subtle for the commercial presses of his era. The print belongs to a late phase of his career when the global travel that had fueled his most celebrated series was curtailed by conflict, pushing him to extract maximum depth from accessible subjects.