$200–$1,500. Common prints: $200–$500. Key value factors: Takahashi's prints are modestly priced. Quality examples with strong design are most valued.
A woodblock print depicting a historic townscape with the admiration implied by "splendid," suggesting an older urban area whose traditional architecture retains its beauty and coherence. Takahashi renders the layered rooftops, narrow streets, and aged building materials of a town that has preserved its premodern character against the pressures of twentieth-century development. The subject connects to his documented interest in Kyoto and other Japanese cities where wooden architecture, tile roofs, and human-scale streetscapes survived into the modern era. The mokuhanga technique suits this subject particularly well, as the organic texture of woodblock printing harmonizes with the wooden and earthen materials of traditional Japanese urban construction.
Woodblock print
1928
Color lithograph
1930
Color lithograph
1948
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Splendid Old Town was created by Takahashi Rikio (高橋力雄).
Splendid Old Town depicts urban scenes.
