![Bookplate design [woman playing shamisen] by Takehisa Yumeji — Japanese Woodblock print, ink and color on paper, 1910s–1930s](https://1.api.artsmia.org/800/132724.jpg)
Bookplate design [woman playing shamisen]
- Date:
- 1910s–1930s
- Medium:
- Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
- Format:
- Oban
- Dimensions:
- 16.8 × 10.6 cm
$1,000–$15,000. Beauty prints by this artist are particularly sought after. Original prints and illustrations: $4,000–$8,000. Key value factors: Yumeji's popular image means many reproductions exist. Original prints are scarcer and more valued.
A woman playing the shamisen — the three-stringed lute at the center of traditional Japanese musical culture — appears in this bookplate design from Yumeji's Taisho-era illustrated book work. Bookplate designs were a significant portion of Yumeji's commercial output, his distinctive style lending itself naturally to the small-format, intimate context of the bookplate. The shamisen player is a figure from the world of traditional entertainment culture — geisha, folk music, the pleasure quarters — updated in Yumeji's treatment with a distinctly modern emotional interiority.
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Bookplate design [woman playing shamisen] was created by Takehisa Yumeji (竹久夢二) in 1910s–1930s.
Bookplate design [woman playing shamisen] depicts music and bijin-ga.
Bookplate design [woman playing shamisen] measures 16.8 × 10.6 cm (Oban format).
