Sailing Boats: Night (1926) – Hiroshi Yoshida

A high definition print reproduction of "Sailing Boats: Night", a Japanese woodblock print by Hiroshi Yoshida (1926)

✓ Thick, matte, museum-quality paper
✓ Printing from ultra-high-definition images
✓ Fast worldwide shipping in a protective cardboard tube
✓ Restored colors faithful to the original work

Night has fallen over the Inland Sea. A sailboat rests at anchor, its small tender tied alongside, and its sails glow a pale green against the deep blue darkness. On the horizon, the lights of a distant shore flicker on the water, while a single lamp burns on deck. Everything is still: only the long reflections of the masts and sails tremble on the surface.

This print belongs to Yoshida's celebrated Inland Sea series (Seto Naikai shū), published in 1926. For six of its prints, Yoshida used exactly the same woodblocks, changing only the colours to show the same boats at different times of day and in different weather, from morning to night and mist. The Sailing Boats series became his most famous work and a striking demonstration of what colour alone can express.

The left margin carries the series title, the date and the title "Sailing Boats, Night", next to the red jizuri seal ("self-printed") that marks the prints made under Yoshida's own supervision.

Japanese artist Hiroshi Yoshida (1876–1950) was a master of shin-hanga, the "new prints" movement that renewed the ukiyo-e tradition with Western light and perspective.

Discover all our Hiroshi Yoshida prints, or browse our full collection of Japanese woodblock prints.