Ono, Mito (Mito Ono)
by Kawase Hasui
- Date:
- 1949
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print; oban
- Format:
- Oban
- Publisher:
- Watanabe Shozaburo
by Kawase Hasui
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.
Ono at Mito, published in 1949, depicts a district of Mito city in Ibaraki Prefecture — a castle town on the Naka River and administrative center of the former Mito domain, one of the three senior Tokugawa branch families. Mito is particularly associated with Kairakuen, one of Japan's three great gardens famous for its 3,000 plum trees, though the Ono district likely depicts a different aspect of the city's landscape. The 1949 date places this among Hasui's early postwar documentation of Ibaraki Prefecture's river towns and historic castle settlements.
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Ono, Mito (Mito Ono) was created by Kawase Hasui (川瀬巴水) in 1949.
Ono, Mito (Mito Ono) was published by Watanabe Shozaburo (1949).
Ono, Mito (Mito Ono) depicts landscapes and gardens.
