Making Plum Sake Print

A beautiful and soft-toned print, printed on textured fine art paper. The original woodcut was created by famous ukiyo-e artist Keisai Eisen, whose works were bought by and served as inspiration to Vincent Van Gogh.

It’s an example of a ‘surimono’, a detailed print in which images are combined with one or more poems. The artwork features a kettle for making plum sake on a brazier, with a lacquered tray and a sake set, as well as two poems by the poets Haikai Utaba and Shofuen Hananushi. The monkeys drawn on the sake cup refer to the new year of the monkey, 1824, when the piece was made.