Auction: Japanese prints from the personal collection of René Scholten – Part II

This second selection continues the dispersal of a remarkable collection, reflecting the evolution of ukiyo-e, with each print bearing witness to the discerning eye of an exacting collector. 

René Scholten, president of Scholten Japanese Art which opened in New York in September 2000, began as an avid collector of Japanese art, with a particular passion for woodblock prints. 

He began collecting Japanese prints in the early 1980s- his first major purchase was a 1929 woodblock print by Torii Kotondo, "Make-Up." From there, his collection quickly grew, as did his involvement in the Japanese art community of Holland, and beyond.

Initially Mr. Scholten focused on collecting the work of contemporaries of Kotondo (primarily shin-hanga artists), but in time he found himself drawn to more traditional ukiyo-e of the 18th and 19th century as well. While he no longer collects in areas that would be in direct competition with the activities of Scholten Japanese Art, an insatiable collector can never completely stop. Mr. Scholten frequently loans work from his collection to museums in Holland and the United States, and continues to supporting a wide range of Japanese art-related projects and institutions. It is a part of this personal collection, assembled with care over a period of fourty years, that he chooses to sell with the auction house Audap & Associés assistance.

Sale June 12th 2025, 2pm, Drouot, room 7, Audap & Associés.

Viewing, 10-11 June 11:00-18:00, 12 June 11:00-12:00. Upon appointment at Cabinet Portier until 5 June.

Click here to take a look at the full catalogue. 

Lot 3

Suzuki Harunobu (Japan, 1725-1770)

Three prints, chuban tate-e, from an untitled series of Parodies of the Three Evening Poems (Sanseki waka). Signed Suzuki Harunobu ga. 1766-1767. Dim. 28,2 x 20,4 cm

These prints are part of an untitled set of three illustrating the Three Evenings, each composition featuring a rectangular cartouche enclosing verses from the fourth section of the Shin Kokinshu (an anthology of waka poetry compiled in 1206).

 Evening by the marsh.

Courtesans reading on an autumn evening.

Lot 61

Utagawa Hiroshige (Japan, 1797-1858) 

Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and Atake (Ōhashi Atake no yūdachi), from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei). Signed Hiroshige ga. Publisher Uoya Eikichi. Dated the 9th month of the year of the snake, 1857. Traces of mica. Dim. 36.8 x 25.3 cm

'One Hundred Famous Views of Edo' was the artist’s most ambitious landscape series to date, and the views from different parts of the capital provide us today with unique insights into the cityscape and its surroundings before its destruction by fires, earthquakes, war, and the changing face of the city due to modernization in the later nineteenth century. The promised “one hundred” designs draws analogies with the classical anthology, 'One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets' (Hyakunin isshu).

Vincent van Gogh painted his own rendition of this famous print by Hiroshige.

Estimate 30.000/40.000 Euros

Lot 67 

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (Japan, 1839-1892) 

Triptych, oban tate-e, Fujiwara no Yasumasa Plays the Flute by Moonlight Displayed at the Exhibition for the Promotion of Painting in Autumn 1882 (Meiji jûgo mizunoe uma kishû Kaiga Kyôshinkai shuppinga Fujiwara no Yasumasa gekka fue o moteasobu zu, ôju). Signed Taiso Yoshitoshi sha on the left leaf (artist's stamp Taiso and Yoshitoshi). Publisher Akiyama Buemon. Dim. 36.7 x 24.7 cm.

Estimate 20.000/30.000 Euros

Lot 122 

Kobayakawa Kiyoshi (Japan, 1899-1948) 

Dai oban tate-e, No. 1: Tipsy (Horoyoi), from the series Figures in Contemporary Fashions (Kindai jiseishō no uchi). Dated from the 2nd month of Showa 5 (1930). Self-published. Dim. 52 x 30 cm

Completely in tune with the times, Kiyoshi has created an iconic image that embodies the modern women of the 1920s in Japan. These 'modern women' (modan gāru, or moga for short) can be seen as the Japanese equivalent of the United States' flappers, Germany's neue Frauen, France's garçonnes or China's modeng xiaojie.

This woman completely looks the part: wearing a polka-dot dress and Western jewellery, she is enjoying a night out in an urban café, leisurely resting her elbows on the table, her bobbed hair loosely pinned back, and she seductively and confidently looks straight towards the viewer, while she smokes a cigarette and drinks a Manhattan cocktail, which, as we can judge from her slightly flushed face, might not be her first. The scarlet background adds to the sensuality and intimate setting and composition, but also to the bold, colourful and graphic quality of this design. It is now seen as one of Kiyoshi's finest works and is one of his most illustrated.

Estimate 30.000/40.000 Euros

Lot 136 

Itō Shinsui (Japan, 1898-1972) 

Oban tate-e, ‘[Ōshima] Island Woman’ (Shima no onna), from the series 'Twelve Forms of New Beauties' (Shin bijin jūnishi). Signed upper left Shinsui ga, stamp Ito. Publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō. Dated the 2nd day of the 10th month of Taisho 11 (1922). On the reverse, numbered 192/200. Dim. 43 x 25,9 cm  

The series 'Twelve Forms of New Beauties' was commissioned by the Ukiyo-e Research Society (Ukiyo-e kenkyūkai) and was sold in an edition of 200 prints per design. Eleven prints were published in 1922-23, with the last design, 'Contemplating the Coming of Spring', postponed until 1924 because of the Great Kantō Earthquake.

As Shinsui's first series of beautiful women, its aim was, as the title suggests, to represent a new form of feminine beauty as advocate by the shin hanga movement, and by the artist's own ideals. His lyrical depictions of women were based on what he believed was the illustration of the essential realism of the female form. In Shima no onna (literaly: 'woman from an island'), Shinsui deviates from his usual city-dwelling geisha and depicts Ōshima's so called anko-san (Ōshima dialect for 'big sis'). Anko-san are typically young unmarried Ōshima women who are recognizable by their traditional indigo-coloured clothing and the water buckets or heaps of firewood that they carry on their heads. On the woman's head rests a small cotton hand towel (tenugui) to ease the weight of the water. She is set against a clear, starry night sky, far away from the light pollution of modernized downtown Tokyo.

Estimate 4.000/5.000 Euros