Kawamata silk refining Ltd Calendar
(1910)
Medium
colour woodblock print on paper, silk
Measurements
36.3 × 25.5 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of the Estate of Edna Dorothy Bull (née Stainton) in memory of her grandmother Sarah Matilda Whitbourn, 2022
Gallery location
Not on display
About this work
In the early twentieth century, the Deer and Stag Pure Silk Company (Kawamata Kenpu) was one of Japan’s leading textile traders, frequented by foreign cruise-ship passengers visiting Yokohama. Every year the company produced a high-quality twelve-page calendar as a souvenir gift for customers. In 1910 Kawamata commissioned the leading ukiyo-e portrait artist Toyoharu Chikanobu – also known as Yōshū – to produce twelve images of women, each dressed in kimono that match the month and season of the year. Each page is hand-printed in the traditional ukiyo-e manner and includes a machine-printed date chart.