Yodo River

Date:: 1942
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

The Yodo River flows from Lake Biwa through Osaka to Osaka Bay, passing through historic cities and the productive agricultural plain of the Kinai region. Yoshida's 1942 print — made during the Pacific War, when the artist continued working despite the upheaval around him — captures the river's wide, slow character as it approaches the sea, the water's surface reflecting a sky that may be hazy or overcast. The Yodo was not a glamorous subject like the Kamo or the Sumida, but Yoshida's eye for the beauty of ordinary water and ordinary light found material even in this workaday river.