Genroku Shell Print: Mutsuda

A beautiful and soft-toned print, printed on textured fine art paper. The original was created by Katsushika Hokusai (he of ‘The Wave’ fame). It was part of a commission by one of the most prestigious ‘kyoka’ poetry groups at the time, to celebrate an anthology of poems from the Genroku period which all mention shells. Every one of the 36 prints in Hokusai’s series A Matching Game with the Genroku Poem Shells’ makes a reference (figuratively or abstractly) to the subject of seashells. Each artwork features its own specific shell, illustrated within a fan-shaped cartouche, and writing which alludes (some more obliquely than others) to that type of shell, often in the form of a pun.

This particular print from the series features the village of Mutsuda, famous for its weeping willows, on the banks from the Yoshino river. In the foreground a ferry, in the distance a mountain between banks of fog.