Image: Mie Prefectural Art Museum, Tsu
Mie Prefectural Art Museum in Tsu is marking the last day of its 'Rockefeller Collection Bird and Flower Woodblock Print Exhibition,' a display centered on bird-and-flower subjects in Japanese woodblock printing. The museum’s post highlights one of the exhibition’s featured works as a print by ukiyo-e artist Kitagawa Utamaro titled 'Young Pine with Crane'.
The museum identified the work in connection with NHK’s taiga drama 'Berabou - Dream of Prosperity in Tsuta-jū', which has brought additional attention to the image. In its note, the museum also said the print lacks publisher and reprint marks, suggesting it is believed to be a private edition.
According to the museum’s description, the absence of those marks means the work may have been produced as a gift for celebratory purposes rather than as a standard published print. That detail places the work within a different circulation history from more typical commercial ukiyo-e editions, while still linking it to Utamaro’s wider printmaking practice.
The exhibition itself is organized around the Rockefeller Collection, with the museum foregrounding bird and flower woodblock prints as the main theme. The post does not provide a broader checklist of works, but it singles out 'Young Pine with Crane' as the final featured work in the presentation shared online.
No additional curatorial statement or extended label text was included in the museum’s post, and the announcement is framed simply as a final-day reminder. The museum’s social media message focuses on the featured Utamaro print and its unusual publication status, rather than on a larger interpretive program or event schedule.
Mie Prefectural Art Museum, based in Tsu, used the final-day post to direct attention to one object within the exhibition, tying together a historical ukiyo-e image, a contemporary television drama reference, and the museum’s note about the print’s likely private-edition character.
