Freddie Mercury: A World of His Own | In Love with Japan
Freddie Mercury: A World of His Own | In Love with Japan
Lot Closed
September 11, 09:04 AM GMT
Estimate
4,000 - 6,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Suzuki Harunobu (1725-1770)
Returning Sail at the Towel Rack (Tenugui-kake kihan)
Edo period, 18th century
woodblock print, from the series Eight Fashionable Views of Interiors (Furyu zashikihakkei), unsigned, circa 1768; collector's seal of Henri Vever at lower right corner, framed
Horizontal chuban:
20.9 x 28.1 cm., 8¼ x 11 in. (the print)
39 x 47 cm., 15⅜ x 18½ in. (the frame)
Henri Vever (1854-1942)
Sotheby's, London, Highly Important Japanese Prints, Illustrated Books, Drawings and Paintings from the Henri Vever Collection, Part III, 24 March 1977, Lot 42.
Paris, 1910, M. Vignier and M. Inada, Harunobu Koriusai Shunsho Estampes Japonaises Exposees au Musee des Arts Decoratifs en Janvier 1910, no. 207.
Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, Harunobu Koriusai Shunsho, January 1910.
A young woman plucks her lover's beard with tweezers whilst embracing in a room overlooking a garden, their faces reflected in a mirror on a stand nearby. In a subtle reference to the print's title, a towel on a towel rack is blowing in the wind like a sail on a boat.
Another impression of the same print is in the collection of the British Museum, museum number 1937,0710,0.41, go to:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1937-0710-0-41
