Key value factors: Edition order (first Watanabe/Doi printing vs. posthumous reprints) is crucial. Snow scenes, night views, and bijin-ga typically command premiums. Publisher seals and artist signatures authenticate first editions.
Cargo junks ride at anchor or move slowly across a harbor as the sky burns yellow behind them in this dramatic harbor scene by Yuhan Ito. The large-sailed wooden junks that worked the Japanese coastal trade were disappearing from the harbors of the 1930s as motorized vessels took over, and prints like this one carry an elegiac charge — documenting a working seascape that was already beginning to vanish. Ito captures the yellowed sky with unusual coloristic boldness, using it to backlight the dark silhouettes of the hulls and rigging.
Woodblock print
Hansen, yoru
1926
Color woodblock print
1915
Color woodblock print
Hansen, asa
1926
Color woodblock print
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Junks and Yellow Sky was created by Yuhan Ito (伊藤雄半).
Junks and Yellow Sky depicts boats & ships, seascapes, and night scenes.
