Teahouse

Date:: 1938
Medium:: Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
Format:: Oban
Dimensions:: 27.3 × 40.3 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

The Teahouse, from 1938, depicts one of the distinctive small tea pavilions that punctuate traditional Japanese gardens and rural landscapes — modest structures of wood and paper whose beauty lies precisely in their simplicity and integration with the surrounding greenery. Yoshida's treatment emphasizes the way such buildings negotiate the boundary between interior and exterior, their sliding screens and open eaves creating a permeable membrane between human habitation and natural setting. The print's warm, golden light suggests the late afternoon hours most associated with the tea ceremony's contemplative spirit.