Haniwa Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Horse, Shôwa period, circa 1960s

Haniwa Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Horse, dated circa 1960s in the Showa period, is a Japanese woodblock print by Toru Mabuchi held in the collection of the Harvard Art Museums (HUAM-CARP01036) and documented through ukiyo-e.org. The print gathers four haniwa figures, the unglazed terracotta tomb sculptures of the Kofun period (roughly 3rd-6th century CE), into a single composition: a monkey, a rooster, a dog, and a horse. Animal-form haniwa are among the most distinctive types in the Japanese archaeological record, and Mabuchi treats them with the same combination of dignity and graphic clarity he brings to his human haniwa subjects. The Japanese woodblock medium suits these figures exceptionally well; their simplified, schematic forms become legible carved silhouettes, and the matte, dry surfaces of the original terracotta translate into softly inked planes. As a sosaku-hanga (creative print) artist, Mabuchi personally designed, carved, and printed each block, and the unity of his approach is evident in how the four animals read as a coordinated group rather than four separate studies. The Harvard provenance and Showa-period dating give the work a stable institutional reference point, useful for researchers placing Toru Mabuchi within postwar collections of Japanese prints. For viewers interested in how sosaku-hanga artists used ancient Japanese material culture as subject matter for modern Japanese woodblock practice, this animal-haniwa print is one of Mabuchi's clearest statements on the theme.