I’ve had this small, 11”x4” panting for approximately 20 years. It was found in an antique piece of donated furniture from a higher end brownstone in Boston. The back appears to be an old style postcard with some eastern characters written on it. Seems to depict a river/village in front of a mountain. Anyone have any idea about it. Seems too nice to toss but I don’t know a thing about paintings. Thank you!

  • Pretty certain that would depict a scene from rural Japan, the conical mountain would be Mount Fuji--a favorite subject of both Japanese and foreign artists.

    Japan was absolutely fascinating to Westerners after the mid-19th century (mid-1850s) when an American military / diplomatic expedition essentially forced Japan to start diplomatic and economic ties with the United States and Europe. Japanese art, ceramics, fabrics, metal work, etc. became popular abroad, and an increasing number of travelers brought back Japanese souvenirs, as simple as postcards.

    Since you found it in old furniture from an American city that has long identified itself as fairly cultured and worldly, I'm going to make a wild guess that someone from Boston either made a trip to Japan or knew someone who did, and this was an inexpensive keepsake brought back as a souvenir and eventually forgotten.

    Your postcard looks like it was printed as a "double postcard" that could be folded or cut into two separate, mailable, cards.

    Here's a detailed blog post I just found through a fairly disorganized search, on the history and identification of Japanese postcards:

    https://photojpn.org/news/2016/01/japanese-postcard-history-and-dating-vintage-japanese-postcards/

    And another one which is even better and more specific.

    https://sites.lafayette.edu/eastasia/2014/09/04/how-to-ascertain-the-date-or-time-period-of-a-japanese-postcard/

    If you look at the chart in the second blog, yours looks like two "1/3 divided back" cards printed together on one sheet of paper. The 1/3 divided back cards date from March 1907-March 1918.

    I can't quite tell from the photographs, but does yours look like an original painting, or a printed artwork? It almost looks in a textured way to be an original artwork to me? If you run your finger over it does it feel evenly smooth, like paper, or somewhat textured like you're touching pigment?

    If so, the second blog identifies that type as an "etegami" card. Which seems to represent a tradition of someone creating a unique postcard sized artwork and mailing it to a friend, often with a very brief message. But, again, from just the photo I just can't tell whether it's a reproduced image, or an original artwork. And yours wasn't addressed or mailed, indicating it was bought locally and carried home by the buyer as a keepsake, not sent.

    That's about as far as I think I can go in helping with this, but I hope it's accurate and that I've pointed out some directions for future research. I'm fairly certain you can find, with a bit of further searching, a postcard collectors club or Japanese art group full of experts with an online presence that could nail down the specific details of what you have.

    It's a nice / charming small item, regardless of whether it was mass produced or is one of a kind.

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    Thank you so much for all of the information!

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  • A very charming piece for sure! But without a signature it is nearly impossible to identify the artist.

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    Any recommendations of where I should go from here?

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  • Thanks for your post, /u/No_Wrangler_1301!

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