Charles Bartlett, "Tartar Wall, Peking"

For more than five centuries, the Tartar Wall surrounded the southern boundary of the inner city of Peking (Beijing). The 2nd Ring Road in Beijing today cuts over where the wall once stood. In this pre-1923 earthquake woodblock print by Charles Bartlett, a lone figure and his camel stop for a drink of water while the Tartar Wall looms in the background.

Date: 1919
Size: Oban
Hand-signed; first and only edition
Publisher: Watanabe Shozaburo
Condition: Light mat burn, rubbing, otherwise very good color and condition
Frame Shown: 16" x 24” x 1/2”, Classic Wood, Ebony

Charles Bartlett (1860-1940) was an English painter and printmaker who developed a productive relationship with Watanabe Shozaburo, the preeminent publisher of woodblock prints during the shin-hanga period, with whom he produced about three dozen works. The original woodblocks were later lost in the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake, making his surviving prints scarce.