Morning Cape at Inabo- watercolour

This work is a watercolor study rather than a finished woodblock print, likely executed during one of Hasui's sketching expeditions to Cape Inubo on the Pacific coast of Chiba Prefecture. Hasui worked extensively from direct observation before translating compositions into woodblock designs, and surviving watercolors from these trips document the raw visual data he carried back to the Watanabe studio. The subject — a rocky coastal promontory at dawn — appears across several of Hasui's most celebrated print designs, suggesting this watercolor may represent a preparatory stage in that creative process. The brushwork would capture the dramatic interplay of sea foam against dark basalt, morning light washing across the horizon, and the broad open sky characteristic of the Pacific-facing Chiba coastline. Watercolors of this kind are relatively rare in Hasui's surviving output and offer unusual insight into the gap between observed nature and the formal constraints of woodblock composition.