Morning at Tsuchiura (Tsuchiura no asa)

Tsuchiura no asa, the Japanese-titled version of Hasui's Lake Kasumigaura morning composition, likely represents the primary or early published edition from the Watanabe atelier, where Japanese-language cartouches and title inscriptions appeared in the margins of prints intended for domestic distribution. The design depicts the broad, still surface of Lake Kasumigaura at Tsuchiura in Ibaraki Prefecture, with hobiki-bune freight vessels in the foreground and a graduated sky occupying the upper third of the oban-format sheet. The hobiki-bune, flat-bottomed vessels with distinctive ribbed sails used to carry goods across the shallow lake, were a characteristic feature of the Kasumigaura basin landscape and appear in multiple Hasui designs set in the region. The morning setting placed the composition in the blue and amber tonal range that Hasui deployed frequently for his dawn and dusk landscapes, achieving the gradations through staged bokashi printing on dampened washi. The design's survival in six or more distinct recorded impressions across the Tsuchiura series attests to its sustained commercial significance within the shin-hanga publishing market.