The Waterfall Where Yoshitsune Washed His Horse at Yoshino, Yamato Province, c.1832
Price range: £115.00 through £140.00
Somewhere in this zigzagging waterfall, two men are washing a horse, and it takes a moment to find them. Legend says the fugitive general Yoshitsune stopped here to bathe his horse while on the run from his own brother.
Hokusai loved to hide people in his landscapes, and this one rewards a second and a third look. Red rock and tumbling blue give it the swagger of a poster and the patience of a puzzle.
The Waterfall Where Yoshitsune Washed His Horse at Yoshino, Yamato Province, c.1832
The print
Print Quality: Gallery-standard archival pigment giclée, made to order
Media: 308gsm 100% cotton Hahnemühle Photo Rag
Texture & Tone: Super-matte, smooth chalky finish with soft, muted blacks
Longevity: Museum-grade, generational permanence
Photo Rag suits this woodblock especially well. Its smooth cotton surface adds no texture of its own, so the fine carved lines, the soft gradations of blue and the grain of Hokusai’s original sheet, nearly two centuries old, come through exactly as they are.
Sizes available:
30×45cm, 12×18″, fine art print, open edition
40×60cm, 16×24″, fine art print, open edition
Safe, tracked delivery guaranteed worldwide, with sustainable packaging.
The story
This print comes from A Tour of Waterfalls in Various Provinces (Shokoku taki meguri), sometimes called A Tour of Japanese Waterfalls: eight upright prints Hokusai designed around 1832 for Nishimuraya Yohachi (Eijudō), the Edo publisher of his Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. He was in his seventies, and signed them “Iitsu, formerly Hokusai”.
Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159–1189) was the brilliant general who won his clan’s war, then had to flee when his elder brother Yoritomo turned against him. Legend says he took refuge on Mount Yoshino, in Yamato Province (today’s Nara Prefecture), and washed his horse beneath this waterfall. The British Museum notes there is no direct evidence it ever happened, though local guidebooks of the early 1800s told the story. Hokusai lets horse and grooms all but melt into the red crags, following the line of the water.
