The Kamo River

Date:: 1933
Medium:: Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
Format:: Oban
Dimensions:: 27.6 × 40.8 cm
Publisher:: Yoshida Studio
Source:: Minneapolis Institute of Art

Typical Price

The edition type is the primary value driver for Yoshida prints. The jizuri seal — indicating the artist personally supervised every aspect of printing — typically commands 2–3× the price of posthumous reprints. Standard jizuri prints of Japanese landscapes cluster around $2,149 at dealer level (1stDibs benchmark). PBS Antiques Roadshow valued a pair of lifetime prints at $2,500 total (~$1,250 each) for non-jizuri examples.

Jizuri (artist-supervised) seal: $1,500–$4,000
Studio edition (no jizuri): $700–$2,000
Posthumous/family workshop reprint: $300–$800

Description

The Kamo River flows through the heart of Kyoto, its banks lined with the wooden tea houses and restaurants of Pontocho, the Higashiyama hills rising to the east. Yoshida's 1933 print captures the river in the low, clear light of autumn or early spring — the water's surface reflecting sky and the architecture that crowds its banks, the mountains providing a backdrop that reminds the viewer that Kyoto is a city embedded in its natural geography. The Kamo had been a subject of Japanese art for centuries, and Yoshida's version adds a twentieth-century sensitivity to atmospheric light.