Suzuki Harunobu – The Evening Bell of the Clock (Tokei no banshō), c. 1766 | Framed Giclée Print

A girl leans on a young woman's shoulder while a lantern clock stands on its shelf. In the Chinese canon this view is The Evening Bell of a Distant Temple; here the temple bell has become the striking of a domestic clock, heard in a quiet 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: 28.5 × 21.7 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), The Evening Bell of the Clock (Tokei no banshō), from the series Eight Views of the Parlour (Zashiki hakkei), c. 1766; colour woodblock print, chūban, 28.5 × 21.7 cm.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Clarence Buckingham Collection, Acc. No. 1928.902.
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.