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I would appreciate any and all help in identifying this unsigned woodblock print. It is approx. 18 by 10 inches, nicely framed behind UV-protectant glass. I can find no signature, and an image search yields no results. Many thanks in advance.

Hi
This looks like Chinese ancestor portrait. They are usually hand painted. It does n't look like it is a Japanese woodblock print
Sue

should be a painting rather than a woodblock, a decorative picture imitating a portrait of a Chinese civil servant, which were in turn used as models for portraits of ordinary peoples' ancestors, but this is near new and made for the tourist market I would think, the artist will be nearly impossible to identify.

Here are photos of the two artist seals, along with another painting (signed), which was presented with the first as a pair. The seals are not in great shape, but perhaps the more learned members can make something of them.

This probably isn't a woodblock print, rather a 20th century or subsequently produced watercolor or "gouache" painting in the manner of an ancestral or imperial portrait, but in a reduced size and economical style of brushwork typical of art mills that flourish around the corners wherever tourists shop in the neighborhood of China.

The real antique item would've originally been painted as a scroll in a much larger format, showing the individual with a clearly detailed Mandarin badge of his rank and likely an inscription of some type to identify the person.

Think of this picture as having been meant from the outset to brighten a corner in someone's home without anyone ever having to kowtow before it.

Best regards,

Bill H.

Thanks, Bill and all, for the information.

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