Description
One day, while walking in the forest, an old, childless bamboo cutter called Taketori no Okina (竹取の翁) came across a mysterious, shining stalk of bamboo. After cutting it open, he found inside it an infant the size of his thumb. He rejoiced to find such a beautiful girl and took her home. He and his wife raised her as their own child and named her Kaguya-hime (かぐや姫). Thereafter, Taketori no Okina found that whenever he cut down a stalk of bamboo, inside would be a small nugget of gold…
The prologue of the famous Taketori monogatari (竹取物語), the ancient Japanese tale that tells the story of the “shining princess of the supple bamboo” Nayotake no Kaguya-hime (なよ竹のかぐや姫), is the subject of this refined woodblock print by the artist Ogata Gekko (尾形月耕). The work, printed in 1890 by the publisher Yokoyama Ryohachi (横山良八), is taken from the series “Twelve Months of the Floating World” (浮世十二ヶ月).
The print on Japanese washi paper (和紙), despite the right patina of time, is in very good general condition.
