Signed and Numbered Japanese Lilies Woodblock Print. Shows leaves and calla lilies in whites and greens against an abstract pink background. Framed. Signed indistinctly in pencil bottom right. Numbered 25/25 in pencil bottom left. Titled "One spring morning (II)" in English in pencil bottom middle. Label from a framing company in Tokyo on the back. 

Condition: Great. 

Overall Size: 27 x 35 1/2 in. 

Sight Size: 20 1/2 x 28 in. 

Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later on paper. Each page or image is created by carving a wooden block to leave only some areas and lines at the original level, which is then inked to show up solely in the print in a relief printing process. Carving the blocks is skilled and laborious work, but a large number of impressions can then be printed, sometimes lasting many decades if the blocks are cared for well. As a method of printing on cloth, the earliest surviving examples from China date to before 220 AD. Woodblock printing existed in Tang China by the 7th Century AD and remained the most common East Asian method of printing books and other texts, as well as images, until the 19th Century. Ukiyo-e is the best-known type of Japanese woodblock art print, and its massive proliferation influences artists throughout the world beginning in the 19th Century. Most European uses of the technique for printing images on paper are covered by the art term woodcut, except for the block books produced mainly in the 15th Century.

Great.