Woodblock Print by Eizan: Tiger in Bamboo Forest - Vertical Diptych, Framed

Few Japanese artists of the period had seen a live tiger. This one looks cross about it.

This woodblock print, Tiger in Bamboo Forest – Vertical Diptych, is by Eizan, ink on paper, from Japan, about 1820. Tigers did not live in Japan, so artists there generally worked from imported paintings, pelts and imagination. Two sheets, one above the other, make a tall, narrow picture. The tiger comes forward from behind a dark trunk, with round, staring eyes, a small pink tongue and big curled paws. Bamboo leaves cut across the upper sheet, and green washes the ground below. A wide black mat and gold-leaf frame surround it. Twenty-five inches wide and 45.25 high.

He appears to have noticed you first.