Stumped

I had to go to Jimbocho, that part of Tokyo where the streets are lined with bookstores, old and new, and discount sports stores. So I took the opportunity to look in on the stores specializing in woodblock prints. Marlowe, a restaurant not far from our house on the beach, had put out a promotional postcard (above) that looks like a print by Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), the awesome woodblock artist. I thought that it was be a very nice thing to have, since it's almost a perfect match for the view from where our house it.

Four owners of four of the slicker shops just looked at me blankly when I showed them the postcard. None of them recognized it, and three of them didn't even bother looking through their inventory. I was about to give up until I went past the little shop that specializes in very old books. I showed the man the card, and he didn't hesitate, "I think that's from the book, The 100 Views of Mt. Fuji."

He spent a few minutes climbing over piles of books and pulled an old one off one of the upper shelves, and started flipping through the pages. And there it was--only something was different. It was the same view but it was split into two vertical prints on facing pages. "I think that image on the card has been manipulated," he said. "I don't think it was ever made as a full size print, so someone must have stuck the two images together to make that." "When?" I asked. "Probably in the post-war period; maybe even more recently," he said. "People have done all kinds of things with old prints and the blocks."

But this was the real thing, and it was beautiful. The colors were brilliant, and the price was scribbled on a piece of cardboard attached to a string: ¥650,000. "How much can you afford," he asked. "Well, not that much." I answered. "We get lower quality ones sometimes," he said, and had his assistant fetch another one. ¥98,000. The page with Standing Rock on it was pretty filthy but still impressive. It doesn't really seem that expensive for a whole book of Hiroshige prints, but I really have to think about this. So I asked him to hold it, while I contemplate it for a few days.

I did get a picture.

What would you do?