Mera, Boshu (Boshu Mera)

Date:: 1949
Medium:: Color woodblock print; oban
Format:: Oban
Publisher:: Watanabe Shozaburo
Edition:: Published by Watanabe Shozaburo
Source:: Art Institute of Chicago

Typical Price

Edition period is the primary value driver for Hasui prints. Pre-war lifetime editions with the Watanabe copyright seal (A through D types) consistently achieve 3–5× the price of posthumous reprints of the same design. Condition is the second key factor — unfaded colors, full margins, and absence of foxing or staining are essential. Subject matter (snow > rain > night > other) provides a further modifier within each edition tier. This postwar design (1946–1957) bears the small 6mm J-seal on lifetime impressions — authentic but from the artist's final decade, when block quality had declined from peak period.

Pre-war lifetime edition (Watanabe seal, 1926–1944): $1,000–$4,000
Postwar lifetime edition (J-seal, 1946–1957): $400–$1,500
Posthumous/Heisei edition (seal K/I, 1957–present): $150–$600

Description

Mera is a coastal community on the southern tip of the Boso Peninsula in Chiba Prefecture, where the peninsula narrows before dropping into Tokyo Bay. Hasui's 1949 oban likely shows the rocky headland and coastal views looking across the mouth of Tokyo Bay toward the Izu Peninsula. The southern Boso coast had a wild, exposed character quite different from the sheltered Tokyo Bay side of the peninsula.