Woman with Hand Towel
(Tenugui moteru onna)

with silver mica ground, dated and signed, Taisho kyunen jugatsu (Taisho 9 [1920], October), Goyo ga, with artist's round seal Hashiguchi Goyo, posthumously printed by the artist's family, with family seal on lower left margin, Hashiguchi

dai oban tate-e 18 1/8 by 11 7/8 in., 46 by 30.2 cm

At the time of Goyo's sudden death in February 1921 (at the age of 41) he left unpublished prints in various stages of production. Apparently Goyo was able to select colors for a proof copy of this print (in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession no. 50.870), upon which he wrote the name Hisae, identifying a Shinbashi district geisha as the model.

References:
Kato, Junzo, comp., Kindai Nihon hanga taikei, 1975-76, Vol. I, pl. 92
Reigle Stephens, Amy, gen. ed., The new wave: Twentieth-century Japanese prints from the Robert O. Muller Collection, Bamboo Publishing Ltd., and Hotei Japanese prints, 1993, p. 131, pl. 136 (test print)
Reigle Newland, Amy, and Hamanaka Shinji, The Female Image: 20th century prints of Japanese beauties, Hotei Publishing, 2000, p. 44, pl. 19
Zehnder, Amanda T., Modern Japanese Prints: The Twentieth Century, Carnegie Museum of Art, 2009, p. 36
Koyama Shuko, Beautiful Shin Hanga- Revitalization of Ukiyo-e, Tokyo Metropolitan Edo-Tokyo Museum, 2009, p. 39, p. 1-48

$14,000