KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760-1849) - Rare Black and White Ukiyoe-e Key-Block or 'Hanshita' (black outline only). Oban yoko-e 10 1/4 by 15 1/8 in., 26.1 by 38.4 cm. Unframed, matted, some toning and foxing. From "The Hundred Poems [By the Hundred Poets] as Told by the Nurse: Chunagon Yakamochi (Hyakunin isshu uba ga etoki: Chunagon Yakamochi), depicting a view of Chinese boats off a fantastical shoreline with towering rock formations, two figures, dressed in Chinese garments, stand in the prow of one of the boats and point at three birds flying nearby; signed zen Hokusai Manji, with publisher's seal Eijudo (Nishimura Yohachi), and censor's kiwame seal, ca. 1835-6. "The Hundred Poems as Told by the Nurse" was the last major single sheet series Hokusai designed before he devoted his remaining years primarily to painting commissions. Of the intended series of one hundred, only twenty-seven prints are known to have been completed; an additional sixty-four designs survive in the form of preparatory drawings. Hokusai based this series on the well-known anthology of poems, the Hyakunin Issu (A Hundred Poems by a Hundred Poets), compiled by the poet Fujiwara no Teika in 1235. This poem in the cartouche is by Chunagon Yakamochi (Otomo no Yakamochi, 718-785), an important political figure in his time who also compiled the first Imperial anthology of poems, the Man'yoshu.