Author: Hikifuda.
Title: [Shoyu Shio Sumi ...]
Description: np [190-?]. Colour lithograph 25x37cm. Pretty good. ¶ An almost average street scene in late Meiji Japan but: without the telegraph poles and power lines, bowler hats and cyclist it could be a street scene generations earlier. Hikifuda - small posters or handbills often handed out as seasonal gifts - were usually produced with the text panel blank. The customer, usually a retailer, had their own details over printed, so the same image might sell fine silk or soy sauce. This one, from a Nishinomiya (between Osaka and Kobe) dealer, indeed sells soy sauce, salt, sake and charcoal - tradition kept alive in the modern world.

Keywords: graphic commercial art advertising c19th Japan hikifuda trade catalogues modernism printing meiji food