<b>DAL LAKE KASHMIR</b> / Charles Bartlett1916$4,000</em>

Details

Charles Bartlett was an English painter and printmaker who first traveled to Asia from 1913–to 1917. In 1915, Bartlett met the Japanese publisher and founder of Shin Hanga, Shōzaburo Watanabe. Shortly after their acquittance, Watanabe hired Bartlett to produce 21 woodblock print designs. Their collaboration resulted in great success for Watanabe, who desired to revitalize woodblock print production in Edo-period Japan. Bartlett returned to Japan in 1919 and was hired once again by Watanabe to create an additional sixteen woodblock print designs.

Bartlett produced a diverse body of work for the founder of Shin Hanga, reflecting the artist's extensive travels throughout Asia as well as his adopted home of Hawaii. Bartlett's print designs added to Japanese prints' subject matter and established the commercial viability for foreign, non-Japanese scenes. 

In a quiet lake nestled in between mountain ranges, two small wooden boats advance. One vessel carries a sizeable group of people while the other holds a father and son returning from a day's catch. This serene composition owes much to Watanabe's printers, whose skill was able to match Bartlett's artistic vision, as this impression's printing affects accurately capture the mysterious and haunting mist that permeates the entire composition with astonishing detail.

Every aspect of the composition is printed with a texture that presents the scene in a soft, diffused light, where the gathering mist rises to meet the darkening sky overhead.

Connoisseur's Note

This Bartlett design from 1916 is an exceedingly rare work. The great Kanto earthquake of 1923 destroyed the original Watanabe print shop and studio, including the printing blocks and unsold inventory for this design. Only impressions of this design sold before the earthquake and removed from Tokyo survived the earthquake and ensuing fires that consumed the city. This work's desirability is further bolstered by the red crayon signature at the bottom margin, as well as its excellent state of preservation, particularly the print's lush and vivid colors.