Ito Shinsui (1898-1972) | Face Powder (Oshiroi) | Taisho period, early 20th century

The publisher Watanabe Shozaburo (1885-1962) discovered Shinsui’s work in 1916, kickstarting a twenty-five yearlong collaboration between the two figureheads of the shin-hanga movement. His series, Twelve New Figures of Beauties (Shin bijin juni sugata), is in the vein of earlier ukiyo-e bijin-ga (beauty prints, lit. pictures of beautiful women), yet his figures are imbued with a fresh realism derived from Western-style painting (yoga) that would become a hallmark of the shin-hanga style.

Here, a young woman is about to apply oshiroi, a powder foundation associated with geisha and their apprentices. She sits before an unfurled bamboo blind, her gaze reserved and vague. The contours of her body are executed in curvaceous linework, opposed to the horizontal bamboo slats behind her.

The present lot is sealed shisaku (trial work) to the lower left corner. In the printing process, Watanabe insisted on the use of natural dyes rather than the aniline type common in earlier Meiji period (1868-1912) prints, as well as the use of costly materials or laborious printing methods such as silver mica or embossing. Such trial works mark a stage in the publisher’s endeavour for quality in the print medium. 

For another impression of the same print in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, reference number 1929.634, go to:

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/3282/face-powder-from-the-series-new-twelve-images-of-modern-beauties