$1,500–$10,000. Common prints: $1,500–$3,000. Key value factors: Settai's literary elegance and refined technique have a niche but devoted following among collectors of Japanese aestheticism.
Mount Tsukuba, the twin-peaked mountain in Ibaraki Prefecture sacred to Shinto worship, rises in this 1942 oban woodblock print by Komura Settai. The mountain has been celebrated in Japanese poetry since the earliest anthologies, appearing in the Man'yoshu as a site of spring fertility festivals and romantic encounters. Settai depicts the mountain with the kind of formal clarity that suits both its geological profile and its cultural stature, the twin peaks rendered as clean, sweeping forms against the sky. This late wartime print shows Settai turning to landscape, a genre less central to his oeuvre than bijin-ga or theatrical illustration, perhaps drawn to subjects of national and spiritual significance during a period of crisis.
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.
Mount Tsukuba was created by Komura Settai (小村雪岱) in 1942.
Mount Tsukuba was published by Watanabe Shozaburo (1942).
Mount Tsukuba depicts landscapes, religious, and mountains.
