Lot 70: A painted wood Hagoita (Shuttlecock paddle) By Terashima Tokushige (1892-1975), Showa era (1926-1989), c. 1930

A PAINTED WOOD HAGOITA (SHUTTLECOCK PADDLE)
By Terashima Tokushige (1892-1975), Showa era (1926-1989), c. 1930
Decorated in mineral pigments, ink and gofun (clam-shell gesso) on silk
with a design of a fashionable young woman with bobbed hair, wearing
a beret, jade earrings, and an ermine collar in falling snow, the reverse
with a white camellia on the wood core, the handle wrapped in black
velvet, sealed on the reverse Shimei
With the original tomobako lid (now fitted into a new paulownia storage
box), titled on the exterior Yuki (Snow), and signed and sealed on the
reverse of the Shimei

This elegantly designed paddle with a portrait of a moga (modern girl)
must have been a fashionable New Year’s gift. The beauty looks out at the
snow dressed in colorful silk, wrapped in ermine against the cold, her hair
bobbing from beneath a French beret. Self-possessed and worldly,
she reveals a vulnerable wistfulness at the passing of the old year.
Born in Hyogo Prefecture, Terashima Shimei studied painting under
Kaburagi Kiyokata. He exhibited at government-sponsored exhibitions
before and after World War II, and won numerous awards from prestigious
institutions including the Ministry of Education and the Japan Art
Academy. Noted as a painter of traditional Japanese beauties in kimono,
Shimei also worked as an illustrator and produced woodblock prints; later
in life he published art criticism. His work is in the collection
of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo