Two dark carp swim beneath floating leaves and white flowers

Two dark blue-grey carp swim down the sheet, their scales drawn in fine lines and their bellies shading pale: a slender one above and a large one below, its barbels trailing and its pale eye turned up. At the upper left a raft of floating arrow-shaped leaves holds a few small white flowers. The pale water is marked only by faint ripple lines. The artist's brushed signature and a round brown seal sit at the lower right, with the publisher's name at the right edge.

Ohara Koson (1877–1945) was the leading bird-and-flower (kachō-ga) artist of the shin-hanga movement. Trained in Kanazawa and Tokyo in the Shijō painting tradition, he designed prints from around 1900, first for export publishers and from 1926 for Watanabe Shōzaburō under the name Shōson. Herons in snow, crows on a branch, goldfish and sparrows are drawn with a naturalist's precision and printed with soft gradations and embossed feathers. His prints are held by the Rijksmuseum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Printed as a museum-grade giclée on Hahnemühle fine art paper using 12-ink archival pigment printing. Available handframed in FSC-certified wood with optional float glass, or unframed. Ships worldwide with free delivery to 30+ countries.