The Jungfrau - from the Europe Series

Hiroshi Yoshida

"The Jungfrau" was printed from 8 blocks using 22 impressions. It is signed in the lower left image in sumi ink, "Yoshida", with the red seal "Hiroshi", and with the artist's jizuri (self-printed) seal at the left margin. It was one of Yoshida's early prints and the first in the eleven print "Europe Series". Yoshida attempted many trial printings of this image and impressions can be found in many color variations.

This impression was purchased by collector Roger Epperson from Yoshida scholar and collector Cecil G. Tilton and it is not pencil signed or titled, indicating that it was meant for the Japanese collectors, not the Western market.

"The Jungfrau" depicts the world famous mountain from the Bernese Oberland in the Alps of Switzerland. Yoshida did his color woodcuts titled "The Europe Series", which consisted of 11 prints, all done during he and Fujio's two year world trip, which began in December of 1923 and ended in August of 1925 and included works from Switzerland, Italy, Greece, and Egypt. The trip consisted of America, Europe, and Africa.

At this point his work was beginning to enter the Western market with great success and he opened his own printing and publishing workshop. He had worked with Watanabe and others earlier and most of his work was lost in the earthquake of 1923 and he decided it was best to control his own destiny.