Suzuki Harunobu – Returning Sails of the Towel Rack (Tenugui-kake no kihan), c. 1766 | Framed Giclée Print

A cloth hangs over a wooden towel rack and lifts in the draught. In the Chinese canon this view is Returning Sails off a Distant Shore: the sail has become a towel, and the harbour a corner of a room.

The series turns the old landscape cycle into eight objects in a living room — a parody, a mitate, which only works if you know the landscape it replaces. These are also among the first full-colour woodblock prints ever made, the nishiki-e Harunobu forced through from 1765.

What this is. A giclée reproduction printed with pigment inks. It is not a woodblock print and is not sold as one — a woodblock print is pulled by hand from cut cherry blocks, and the good impressions are in museums.

Scale
Original: 28.7 × 21.6 cm / 11 1/4 × 8 1/2 in — chūban, Art Institute of Chicago
30 × 40 cm / 11.8 × 15.7 in — Original size, 1:1

Provenance
Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese, 1725–1770), Returning Sails of the Towel Rack (Tenugui-kake no kihan), from the series Eight Views of the Parlour (Zashiki hakkei), c. 1766; colour woodblock print, chūban, 28.7 × 21.6 cm.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Clarence Buckingham Collection, Acc. No. 1928.901.
Public domain; the museum publishes its digitisation under CC0.

The frame
Giclée on 200 gsm FSC-certified fine art paper, twelve pigment inks. White border, optical centre. The paper tone of the original is kept, not corrected. Matte black wood frame, glazed with clear plexiglass instead of glass, so it travels safely. Print and frame ship together in one package and are assembled on site.