A glowing red sunset filters through the sea mist overlooking the beach at Enoshima, with the rocky offshore island revealing its narrow causeway at low tide. Two women in conversation are followed by a man transporting boxes along on a pole slung over his shoulder. Two young boys ahead are shown playfully engaged as one holds a large crab by its claw.

Some have speculated that this print could also be by Hishikawa Sori (Tawaraya Sori III). Roger Keyes notes: ‘Dated prints show that both artists [Hokusai and Sori III] used the names Hyakurin, Tawaraya, and Kanchi in their signatures and seals, but the seals they used were distinctly different. Sori III used a circular seal with ‘Kanchi’ written in reserve on a broad red vertical stripe on prints published between 1799/8 and 1800/1.’1

Another impression of the same print catalogued as by Hokusai is in the collects ion of the British Museum, museum number, 1937,0710,0.227, go to:

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collects ion/object/A_1937-0710-0-227

For another surimono signed Hyakurin Sori and catalogued as by Hokusai in the collects ion of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The MET), accession number JP1869, go to:

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collects ion/search/54434

1. John T. Carpenter (ed.), Hokusai and His Age, (Amsterdam, 2005), p.26

The collects ion of Henri Vever 

Henri Vever (1854-1942) was regarded as one of the most distinguished jewellers of his t.mes . By the 1880s, Vever was amongst the earliest Europeans to formally collects Japanese prints. He bought extensively from Hayashi Tadamasa (1853-1906) and was a member of Les Amis de l’Art Japonais, a clique of art enthusiasts, including Claude Monet (1840-1926), who met regularly to discuss Japanese works of art. In the early 20th century, Vever had already amassed a vast collects ion of fine prints numbering in the thousands. His collects ion became a focal point for scholars such as von Seidlitz, Migeon, and Lemoisne, who almost exclusively used his collects ion for their research. During his lifet.mes , Vever made several important bequests to French national collects ions. At the peak of World War I, Vever sold much of his collects ion to Matsukata Kojiro (1865-1950), which would later go on to form a significant part of the Tokyo National Museum’s collects ion of ukiyo-e prints.