Japanese Woodblock Print, 1910, signed and sealed Keishu

SIZE IN INCHES:chuban, 8.75 x 12 inches

TAKEUCHI KEISHU (1861-1943) was adopted into the family of Kano Eitoku, who was head of the prestigious Nakabashi Kano lineage. But, because of the chaos in the country, there was no work for Kano painters so Keishu worked as a porcelain painter while studying Kano. After the suicide of his elder brother in 1879 or 1880, he returned to his father's house and abandoned the Kano style. After a disagreement about quality, Keishu switched from porcelain painting to making hanshita (drawing the black line images to be used for the keyblocks for woodblock prints.)

It is not known when Keishu began illustration. According to Keishu, his early years as a hanshita artist paid little and he was often hard-pressed for basic necessities. When his son mentioned a desire to become a painter, Keishu responded, "If you are able to live on air and water, you may become an artist." In 1887, he joined the writing society Ken'yusha (Friends of the Inkstone - a literary coterie founded in 1885 by a group of Tokyo University students) and designed kuchi-e (woodblock-printed frontispiece illustrations produced for publication in Japanese novels and literary magazines) and sashi-e (illustrations in books, magazines, and newspapers) for the novels of many of its members including its leader Ozaki Koyo (1868-1903). He became the art editor for the Bungei Kurabu literary magazine and contributed some sixty-five kuchi-e.

VG, minor flaws