Antique Chinese Suzhou Woodblock Spring Palace Picture, Hand-Coloured, Mounted as a Hanging Scroll
Antique Chinese Suzhou Woodblock Spring Palace Picture, Hand-Coloured, Mounted as a Hanging Scroll
- Dispatch
- Prepared and sent from Tokyo within 7–14 days, often sooner, or as arranged
- Arrival
- United States · usually 4–7 days after dispatch, insured and tracked Check the Shipping Flowchart here
- Import
Duties and customs · View the estimate
A guide for this piece: about $769, based on the 10% US charge on the declared value of goods made in Japan.
The final figure is set by US Customs and depends on where the piece was made and the kind of object it is. Many antiques over a century old carry no ordinary duty; most jewellery and leather goods add a single-digit rate.
With EMS, any charge is collected by your postal service on delivery. For pieces of significant value we can often arrange duties prepaid before dispatch.
How the estimate is reached · Ask for a figure on this piece
- Character
- Ornate 7.5 of 10 ·
- Replies
- Within one Tokyo business day · Ask the curator team
- Guarantee
- Authenticity guaranteed · How we grade
Every piece is measured by hand, in centimetres as Japan measures. Please allow 1–2 cm (about ½ inch) for the give of the material and the hand that held the tape.
Where each figure is taken · View the plate
Scroll and screen
Condition report
Good
- Giftable
- Mint
- Excellent
- Very Good
- Good
- Honest Wear
- As Found
The Chinese Root of Shunga
Spring pictures from China seeded the Japanese genre that took their name. This one pairs a cut block with hand colour, so the brushwork is individual to the sheet. The robe on its dragon stand and the jewelled headdress give it a courtly theatre.
Best for: Collectors of chunhua, shunga origins and Chinese folk prints
Condition notes
Age toning, stains and spotting to the picture and the mount; wear consistent with age.
Grades, ratings and commentary are given to the best of our ability, knowledge and experience, and condition remains partly a matter of personal perception. What we stand behind without qualification is authenticity, truthful description and provenance, to the best of our knowledge. How we grade
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A Chinese spring palace picture, described as a Suzhou woodblock impression finished by hand in colour and not a mechanical print, mounted as a hanging scroll about 154 cm tall.
The Piece
Chunhua, spring pictures, are the Chinese ancestors of Japanese shunga: the very word shunga is the Japanese reading of the same characters. In Suzhou, whose pictures reached Japan through Nagasaki, printers cut the outlines in the block and painters coloured each impression by hand, so that every sheet has its own touch. Such pictures were often given as wedding gifts.
Here a young man in a jewelled headdress with long gold tassels embraces a lady with flowers in her hair upon a carved lattice chair. Behind them a dragon-headed stand carries a robe of vermilion, orange and green roundels, and a three-character title cut in the block crowns the composition. The drawing is tender and the colour vivid.
Details
- Subject: Spring palace picture (chunhua), a pair of lovers
- Origin: China, described as a Suzhou woodblock picture
- Medium: Woodblock outline with hand colouring on paper; not a mechanical print
- Date: Antique; a date is not stated
- Mount: Hanging scroll in a green mount with dark roller ends
- Overall size: About 154 x 52 cm (60.6 x 20.5 in)
- Picture size: being confirmed against our archive records; please write to the Desk
Measured by hand; please allow a gentle margin of about 1 to 2 cm (0.5 in).
Condition
- Age toning, stains and spotting to the picture and the mount.
- Wear consistent with age; every photograph is part of the description.
Condition grade C (good, visible wear) on the Japanese scale; see Japanese condition ranks, explained.
Authenticity & Care
The work is offered as described to the Desk, as an authentic woodblock impression with hand colouring; no independent appraisal is implied. Hang away from direct sun and store rolled in a dry place.
Delivery from Japan
Rolled, wrapped by hand in Japan and packed in a rigid carton, then shipped discreetly, insured and tracked, by EMS or an equivalent express service. Import duties and taxes, where applicable, are payable on arrival. Every sale is final; please ask anything you wish to know before you buy, and see our published policy.
Considered offers are welcome through Send an Offer, and each one is reviewed personally. More awaits in The Private Room, and more mounted works hang among our scrolls and screens.
Concierge
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