Bamboo sprout

A single bamboo shoot lies horizontally against a bare, lightly toned ground, its dark, tightly overlapping sheaths rendered in dense hatched lines that give way to a paler, textured base marked with rows of small dark spots; a few curling dry leaf tips splay off the tapered end at right, and small scattered marks dot the ground beneath it. Rendered entirely in monochrome ink through etching and aquatint, the composition isolates the single form against an empty backdrop with no other figures or setting. The sheet is signed "T. Ryohei" and dated '66 in pencil at lower right, with a numbered edition mark at lower left.