YAMAMOTO SHOUN: CROWS IN WINTER By Yamamoto Shoun (1870-1965), signed Shoun with seal Japan, c. 1910-1920s Color woodblock print on paper. Vertical o-tanzaku. Signed Shoun with seal. Title Crows in Winter. Two crows perched on a gnarled branch on a snowy winter day. Image SIZE 36.1 x 19 cm, SIZE incl. frame 48.6 x 32.8 cm Condition: Very good condition with minor wear. Very good impression and colors. Trimmed margins and minor browning along the edges. Mounted on a paper frame with tape to the top. By Yamamoto Shoun (1870-1965) was a Japanese print designer, painter, and illustrator. He was born in the city of Kochi, into a family of retainers of the shogun and was given the name Mosaburo. As a teenager, he studied Kano-school painting with Yanagimoto Doso and Kawada Shoryu. At about age 17, he moved to Tokyo, where he studied Nanga painting with Taki Katei. At 20 years of age, he was employed as an illustrator for Fugoku gaho, a pictorial magazine dealing with the sights in and around Tokyo. In his latter career, Shoun primarily produced paintings. In addition to his magazine illustrations, Shoun is best known for his woodblock prints of beautiful women and a group of humorous shikishiban. Museum comparison: A closely related print is in the collection of the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, accession number S2003.8.3347.

Isoroku Yamamoto Photograph Signed in German and Japanese (1938) Marshal Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy and the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet during World War II, known for orchestrating the attack on Pearl Harbor; he was killed in action in April 1943 after American code breakers identified his flight plans. Remarkable vintage matte-finish 4 x 6 portrait photo of Vice Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto seated in his military uniform and surrounded by his family, affixed to the original 7 x 10.75 presentation mount, which is signed and inscribed in fountain pen in both Japanese and German, dated September 2, 1938. In fine condition, with a small stray ink mark on the mount. Yamamoto presented this photo to the German anthropologist Kurt Stülpner (1901-1980), who researched the death cults of Madagascar (1929) and worked at the Saxon State Research Institute of Anthropology, where the racial politics of the Third Reich was underpinned and developed. In 1935 he received a call from Japan, allied with Germany and Mussolini's Italy, to teach German language and culture at the Fukuoka Prefectural Shuyukan High School, an elite school where the teaching language was English. In July the German anthropologist left with his young wife for Japan on the steamer Bremen, and left Japan in September 1938, after having received this photo.