Japanese Woodblock Triptych, 1894, original edition

SIZE IN INCHES: Panels joined and backed: 28.5 x 14

COMMENTS: Perhaps Kiyochika's most dramatic senso-e (war print) depicting a buning ship off shore near Phung-To Korea during the First Sino-Japanese war.

KOBAYASHI KIYOCHIKA (1847–1915) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, best known for his ukiyo-e color woodblock prints and newspaper illustrations. His work documents the rapid modernization and Westernization Japanese underwent during the Meiji period (1868–1912) and employs a sense of light and shade called kosen-ga inspired by Western art techniques. His work first found an audience in the 1870s with prints of red-brick buildings and trains that had proliferated after the Meiji Restoration; his prints of the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 were also popular. Woodblock printing fell out of favor during this period, and many collectors consider Kobayashi's work the last significant example of ukiyo-e.

VG, joined panels, slightly trimmed, backed