[UTAMARO Kitagawa, copy] Hand-painted postcard stylized as a Japanese woodcut from the late 19th/early 20th century.

[UTAMARO Kitagawa, copy] Hand-painted postcard stylized as a Japanese woodcut from the turn of the 20th century.

Ink, watercolor, paper. Work painted on a postcard issued in Russia ("Union Postale Universelle Russie"), 14 x 8.6 cm. Signed in p. d.: "Utamaro | K. Swidzinski" and inscribed in l.d.: "6/5 906. | "Dragon in Prater".


Copy (differing slightly in detail and coloring) of Kitagawa Utamaro's woodcut by an unknown artist sub. "KSwidzinski." The copied woodcut was titled "Woman Drawing a Mortar" and came from a series of 10 depictions of studies of women's physiognomy by Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806), a prominent Japanese artist and wood engraver.
Utamaro is one of the most respected designers of woodcuts and ukiyo-e paintings; he is best known for his bijin ōkubi-e, or depictions of beautiful women from the 1790s.

The work was probably created in a wave of increased interest in Japanese art and Japanese woodcuts, which was initiated in Poland during the Young Poland period by, among others, Feliks Manggha-Jasieński (1861-1929), a prominent collector and donor to the National Museum in Cracow.