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old Chinese prints of some sort

Posted By: lynn
Posted Date: May 22, 2007 (08:15 PM)

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Just discovered this board, wondered if anyone has suggestions on where/how I could find out more about 2 prints I have. I don't know anything about them other than they were probably bought in China before 1950, given to me 20 years ago and I liked the colors and the simplicity of the images. Even w/out the nearly identical marks, they appear to be done by the same person.

I think they are woodblock prints with added hand coloring , rather than watercolors, done mostly in several shades of (by now) greyish blues and browns. Waterfront scenes in what might be village harbors are depicted in both, one at the base of a rocky hill with a small lighthouse. Simple frames look like they were made from half-round, one stained brown and one black, and have crumbling labels on the backs that read Tai Loong, Fine Furniture and Frame Maker, at an address on Bubbling Well Road, Shanghai. What confuses me is that the architecture of a particular building and the small harbor lighthouse in one picture strike me as more Japanese rather than Chinese.

"Signature" looks a lot like a casual directional arrow someone would rapidly draw on a map to indicate North......an inverted V, with a vertical line running about 2 inches beneath it, and a little black squiggle and red pictograph symbol under that. I'll try and get pix soon.

Any ideas where I might see other 1940-ish Chinese or Japanese prints to compare techniques or styles?

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