Fevrier

Fevrier, the French word for February, follows the same calendar-month titling convention as Juillet July and signals Takahashi's engagement with European collectors of postwar Japanese intaglio. The image is most likely a portrait of a woman associated with late winter, rendered through bitten line rather than the mezzotint scraping that characterizes his best-known copperplates. February in the Japanese calendar overlaps with the early plum blossom and the lingering cold before spring, and the print would typically establish this register through restrained dress, muted tonal range, and an introspective gaze consistent with the quiet psychological mood that runs through Takahashi's portraiture. Etching builds the figure through hatched contour and selective shadow, producing a different surface from his mezzotint work but continuing the same concern with stillness and interior life. The French title situates the print within the international circulation of contemporary Japanese prints in the late twentieth century, when artists such as Takahashi, Hamaguchi Yozo, and Tanaka Ryohei found sustained audiences in France for intaglio work that combined European technique with Japanese sensibility.