Ikuhide Kobayashi (19th Century) Japanese, Woodblock Print Temple Scene. Label on back gives information and says it was first printed in 1890. 

Condition: Commensurate with age. 

Overall: 20 x 15 in. 

Sight: 13 3/4 x 8 3/4 in. 

#5052 #13j . 

Ikuhide Kobayashi (sometimes signed as Utagawa Ikuhide) was a painter and a print maker active in the late Meiji Period of Japan. His given name was Eijiro, and he often went by the pen names Hikikutei and Shinpitei as well, with most of his known surviving works produced between 1885 and 1898. Almost nothing is known of his life, as he was the apprentice of ukiyo-e print maker Yoshiiku Ochiai (1833-1904), one of the last members of the Utagawa school and a disciple of Utagawa Kuniyoshi. Yoshiiku introduced ukiyo-e prints into the supplements of newspapers in the Meiji Period, and instructed his students not to merely depict idealized pre-industrialization Japan but to include modern elements in their work. Ikuhide in particular made many woodblock prints showing scenes of Tokyo that included steel bridges, steamboats, railroads, and even modern military battles instead of traditional samurai. Sadly, although Yoshiiku’s work is seen as extremely important to researchers for its more realistic depictions of the modernization of Japan in a critical chapter of the country’s history, he and his students never achieved any acclaim as collectors mainly sought the more old-fashioned ukiyo-e prints depicting an “untouched” and “exotic” Japan. This makes the few pieces of Ikuhide, mainly his series “Tokyo Meisho No Uchi” (“Famous Places In Tokyo”) printed by Okuda Chubei in 1889, particularly rare and unique.

Commensurate with age.