Peddler in the Snow

One of two impressions of this design in the Hanga catalogue, this print depicts a street peddler making his way through falling or accumulated snow — a figure type Hasui returned to across multiple snow compositions as a means of introducing human scale and narrative into a landscape subject. The peddler's load, posture, and the texture of snow on rooftops or ground provide compositional interest; Hasui would have used a mica or gofun ground on the snow areas to achieve opacity and surface brilliance. This impression may be compared with the companion state to assess differences in the depth of shadow under snowfall and the rendering of the figure's clothing. Snow subjects are among the most technically demanding in the Watanabe publishing house catalogue.