Kyōto zuan ["Kyoto designs"] 

Okada, Shikō, Shimomura, Gyokukō [edited by]; 

Kyōto: Kyōto Zuan Zasshi Hakkō-bu, Meiji 43 [1910]. 

Issues 60, 62, and 63 of series 5 of the magazine Kyōto Zuan. Each issue features colourful patterns (some lithographic), monochrome collotype illustrations, and articles on design by contributors. 

& ...

Kyū no tsukihi: shinpan hanji-e ["Days of the old (lunar) calendar: new edition puzzle-picture"]

[Creator unidentified].

[Japan: publisher unidentified, Meiji 22 (1889)?]. 

Egoyomi ("picture-calendars") or Nanbu goyomi ("Nanbu calendars") were originally produced in the Edo period for illiterate people and grew in popularity as privately printed New ...

Manpō Eitai Shin-zassho: Nihon-zu-iri; Saigō Chōhōki ["New Miscellany of Countless Eternal Treasures, with a Map of Japan; Useful Record of Year Names"] 

[Tokanshi (selections by)?].

Edo [Tōkyō]: Tsubameya Yashichi, [ca. mid to late Edo period (1750-1770s)?]. 

An encyclopaedic sheet, woodblock-printed on both sides, providing astrological, histor ...

[Untitled Programme/Menu]

[Japan: publisher unidentified], 1923.

A programme and menu for a US-Japan themed celebration, in French. The embossed naval crest on the upper section of the card implies the event was held on a ship.

Mondokoro kirikata ["Stencils for crest-cutting"]

Arai, Isaburō [illustrated by].

[Edo (Tōkyō)]: Ōnoya Kinzō, [ca. late Edo period (1830-50s)?].

Two issues of a playful work on cutting kamon (family crests) from folded paper. The instructions on the upper wrappers indicate how to fold the paper and how to use the issues - a monkiri ("crest-cutting") can ...

Moyō gajō ["Album of patterns"]

[Artist unidentified].

[Japan: publisher unidentified, ca. early Shōwa period (1920-40s)?]. 

An album of fourteen colour woodblock-printed patterns. Six of the patterns feature multiple colours; the remaining eight are single-colour prints. It is possible the prints were removed from a larger volume and bound in handmad ...

Muyōsei ["The Six Personalities"] 

[Utagawa], Toyokuni [III] [illustrated by].

[Tōkyō: Ibasen, Kaei 6 (1853)].

A complete set of uchiwa-e (fan prints) illustrated by Kunisada I (Toyokuni III) for the publisher and fan shop Ibasen (founded 1590). Each beautiful woman in this series represents one of the six days from the traditional Japanese fortune-te ...

Nanakorobi Yaoki Kaiun Sugoroku ["The Vicissitudes of Life: Game-Sheet of Fortune and Success"] 

Takabatake, Kashō [illustrated by].

[Japan: publisher unidentified, ca. late 20th century?]. 

A reproduction, possibly from the late 20th century, of a Taishō-era period "game of life" sugoroku, sealed in its original plastic wrapper and with its orig ...

Natsu no Sugatami ["Full-Length Mirror of Summer's Beauty"]

Nagata, Sobu [edited by]. 

Nagoya: Fusō Shinbunsha, Meiji 30 [1897]. 

A supplement published to commemorate the 3000th issue of the Nagoya-based newspaper Fusō Shinbun. The booklet adapts the popular Sanjūni Mensō ("Thirty-Two Amusing Expressions") trope and was probably inspired ...

Luchon: Sarthe, [ca. 1909].

An advertisement for the Japanese, Chinese, and Vietnamese wares of antiquities dealer M. Armand Loge, who is known to have published a catalogue of East Asian art objects including carved woods, bronzes, weapons, ivories, netzuke, lacquers, and inrō from the Collection Rabeuf in 1909. The name Tagawa-ya in the bottom left of the print is proba ...

Odamaki ["Columbine"] 

Dai Nihon Zuan Kyōkai Henshūbu [edited by], Ogiwara, Kunizō [editors represented by]; Komuro, Shinzō [essay by].

Kyōto: Gōmei Gaisha Unsōdō, Meiji 40 [1907].

One of the scarcest zuan ("design") publications on zuan pedagogy. The album features eight designs selected from illustrations exhibited by the Industrial Design Dep ...

Ōdontaku Shinbun Kidan ["Great Sunday Newspaper: Stories of Demons"]

Mantei, Ōga [text by]; Seisei [Kawanabe], Kyōsai [illustrations by]. 

Tōkyō: Yamazakiya Seishichi ... [et al.], Meiji 5-6 [1872-1873]. 

Issues 1 and 2 (all published) of a Kyōsai-Ōga zasshi on the exploits of the monks Anrakubō and Narakubō in the six realms of the afterlife. Th ...

Ōmi hakkei ["Eight views of Ōmi"]

[Artist unidentified].

[Japan: publisher unidentified, ca. late Edo to early Meiji period (1840-70s)?].

A set of eight woodblock-printed nishiki-e featuring the famed Eight views of Ōmi (Ōmi hakkei). The prints use the same circular theme, decorative circular border, and poems employed by Utagawa Toyohiro in his Eight view ...

Orimono shō-e ["Textile designs"] 

[Illustrator unidentified].

[Japan, ca. late Meiji period (1900-10s)]. In manuscript.

An album of over 400 tipped-in textile designs by an unidentified artist. The designs feature flowers, plants, people, landscapes, animals, fans, butterflies, ships, and a variety of other objects. Several feature images of sol ...

Otoshidama ["New Year's Gift"]

Yamada, Jinzō [edited by].

Nagoya: Shōeidō, Meiji 26 [1893]. 

A large hikifuda (advertisement) produced for Hayashi Shinbun-ho, a shipping company based in Hamamatsu that also produced newspapers and magazines. The hikifuda is presented as an otoshidama (New Year's gift), presumably in an attempt to encourage mor ...

[Collection of Oshi-e Templates]

[Creator unidentified]. 

[Japan, ca. early to mid-Meiji period (1860-1880s)?]. 

A collection of 157 envelopes housing paper templates used to make oshi-e (raised pictures made with padded cloth). The templates would have been affixed to thick cloth, which would then have been cut to the same size as the paper. The ...

Chiyogami Monyō Hyakushu: Shiki Banshō [“One Hundred Types of Chiyogami Patterns: All Four Seasons”]

Yoshimoto, Kanon [edited by]. 

Kyōto: Shūkōsha, Shōwa 47 [1972].

An album of over 290 tipped-in examples of woodblock-printed and stencil-printed papers from the Edo to Shōwa periods. The majority of the papers are chiyogami, but examples ...

[Untitled Collection of Match Labels]

[Japan: various publishers, ca. Taishō to early Shōwa period (1910-30s)].

A collection of over five hundred Japanese product labels from the 1920s and 1930s, tipped-in to a photograph album. Most of the labels ar ...

[Japan: publishers unidentified, ca. Edo period (19th century)].

A collection of twenty woodblockprinted mamori, woodblock-printed paper amulets usually sold at temples and shrines. Most of the amulets record what the buyer will be protected from, and several are enclosed in woodblockprinted 'envelopes'.

Twenty paper amulets. Creases, mark ...

Fuyumono ishō-zukushi ["Various winter clothes"]

Ichibaisai [Morikawa] [Utagawa], Chikashige [illustrated by].

[Edo (Tōkyō)]: Tsuji Kame [Tsunajima Kamekichi], Meiji gannen [1868].

A colourful woodblock print of patterns for winter clothing, probably designed to be cut and folded into some unknown 3D form. The artist, Utagawa Chikashige, was a pupil of Kun ...

Pengin-chō no Hanashi ["The Story of Penguins"]

Tada, Keiichi [written by]; Tada, Haruki [illustrated by].

Tōkyō: Shunyōdō, Taishō Gannen [1912].

An introduction to penguins, written and illustrated by Tada Keiichi (Tada Haruki, 1883-1959). Tada travelled to the South Pole with Shirase Nobu in 1910 as the expedition's secretary/record keeper. The te ...

[Japan]: Shimomura, [ca. late Meiji to Taishō period (1900-20s)?].

An unusual image possibly featuring the son of the photographer.

One card, photograph tipped-in. Scrapes, light foxing, a few marks. 24.2 x 18.3 cm.

[Untitled Collection of Photographs]

[Photographer unidentified].

Esashi, Hokkaidō: Asakura Shashinkan, [ca. Shōwa 11 (1936)].

A collection of 24 photographs capturing various groups that travelled to Esashi, Hokk ...

Reishin Gajō ["Album of Beautiful New Illustrations"]

Matsui, Yūkoku, [Furuya, Kōrin] [illustrated by].

Kyōto: Honda Ichijirō, Honda Shoten, Meiji 33 [1900].

A complete two-volume set of colour woodblock-printed designs by the little-known artist Matsui Yūkoku (fl. 1900s, sometimes read Matsui Yoshitani). The set contains a total of 51 illustrations, 5 ...

Rinhyō nishiki-shū ["Collection of brocade matchbox labels"]

[Kitagawa], Utamarō, [Utagawa], Toyokuni ... [et al.] [illustrated by].

Tōkyō & Ōsaka: Oda ... [et al.], [ca. early Shōwa period (1930s)].

An album of over 1,300 matchbox labels, mostly woodblock-printed, produced in Japan around the 1930s. The labels, which have been produced in themed sets ...

Seihō Ippinshū ["A Collection of Masterpieces by Seihō"]

Takeuchi, Seihō [illustrated by]

Kyōto: Unsōdō, Shōwa 12 [1937]. 

The first series, featuring 31 prints, of Seihō Ippinshū, a collection of designs by the highly acclaimed nihonga painter Takeuchi Seihō (1864-1942). Produced by Unsōdō under Seihō's supervision just a few years before the a ...

[Yanagawa, Shunsan].

Tōkyō : Yamatoya Kihē, [ca. Meiji 2 (1869)].

A woodblock-printed booklet published to help Japanese readers understand ‘western time’ and the reading of western clock faces. The change in Japan from the old lunar calendar to the Gregorian calendar was made in November of Meiji 5 (1872), and this accordion-folding booklet would have ...

Shimeizukushi Sugoroku ["A Game Board of Various Papers"]

[Creator unidentified].

[Tōkyō]: Isetatsu, [ca. early to mid Shōwa period (1930-50s)?].

A Shōwa period edition of this illustrated game about papermaking and Japanese paper types. The original edition is thought to have been produced between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Each panel depicts ...

Shin zuan ["New designs"]

Kamisaka, Sekka, Kaigai, Tennen ... [et al.] [illustrated by]; Nakayasu, Shinzaburō [edited by].

Kyōto: Fujī Magobē, Meiji 25 [1892]. 

Issue Nine of Shin zuan, featuring twelve full-page colour woodblock-printed patterns, mainly of plants and flowers. Each artist's name is recorded on each print's verso. Artists ...

Shin zuan ["New designs"]

Kamisaka, Sekka, Kaigai, Tennen ... [et al.] [illustrated by].

Kyōto: Gonikai Kyōto Zuan-bu, Meiji 30 [1897]. 

Issue One of the magazine Shin zuan, featuring ten full-page colour woodblock-printed patterns of plants, flowers, and landscapes. The magazine was published by the Gonikai, a group of Kyoto-based design enthusiasts. ...

Shin'an Nankyoku tanken hikōki sugoroku ["Antarctic expedition by plane: a newly devised game-sheet"]

Akashi, Akako [illustrated by].

Tōkyō: Jitsugyō no Nihonsha, Meiji 44 [1911]. 

A game-sheet published during the golden era of Antarctic exploration. In the game, four players race to the South Pole, travelling through various countries including ...

Shinha Shinengeki Segidan Ichiza Hamuretsuto ["Hamlet, Staged by the New School New Theatre Justice Troupe"]

Shakespeare, William [original text by]; Yamagishi, Kayō, Doi, Shunsho [translated by].

[Japan: creator unidentified, ca. late Meiji period (before 1909)].

A Meiji era poster for a performance by the Seigi-dan troupe of Shakespeare's Hamlet, wit ...

Shinpan Katsura-e ["Illustrations of Wigs, Newly Published"]

[Utagawa], Yoshikazu [illustrated by].

[Edo (Tōkyō)]: Shiba Sen'ichi, Kaei 6 [1853].

A colour woodblock-printed omocha-e (toy print) featuring illustrations of six kabuki actors (including one onnagata actor) and 38 wigs to be cut out and placed on the actors' heads for amusement. Each wi ...

Shinpan kawari utsushi-e ["Changing magic lantern pictures: newly carved"]

[Creator unidentified].

[Japan: publisher unidentified, ca. mid to late Meiji period (1880-90s)?].

A set of six pochibukuro (mini-envelopes) from the Meiji period featuring shikake-e (movable illustrations). Each pochibukuro has inside it a small print that can be slid upwards to ch ...

新板おもちやづくし [Shinpan Omocha-Zukushi, “A Newly Printed Assortment of Toys”]

Kamiyama, Seishichi [illustrated by].

Shintomichō, [Tōkyō]: Kamiyama Seishichi, Meiji 17 [1884].

An omocha-e toy print featuring an assortment of tiny games, probably for children to cut out and play (or pretend to play) with. The games include a "Fifty-Three Stati ...

Shinsei Tobi Dango ["Consultation with a Beautiful Rabbit: A New System"]

Mantei, Ōga [text by]; Seisei [Kawanabe], Kyōsai [illustrated by]. 

[Tōkyō]: Yamazakiya Seishichi, Meiji 6 [1873]. 

A story about greed, featuring the characters Yokuno Fuzakō (a human), Saitoriya Butaroku (a pig), a dog, and a rabbit. The satire attacks the greed of the pa ...

Shinsen Jinbutsu: Orikata Tehon Chūshingura, Jūichi-dan ["New Selection of Figures: Models of Paper Folding for the Eleven Acts of the Chūshingura"]; Chūshingura Orikata Denjū-gaki ["Instructions on How to Fold the Chūshingura"]

[Tsuyama, Yūzō (attributed to)].

Ōsaka: Konomura Hikosuke, [ca. Meiji period (1870-1890s)]. 

A set of two sheets prov ...

Shinshiki Sanpō: Kuku no Fuda ["Nine-Nine Cards: A New Method of Arithmetic"]

[Tsurumine, Shigenobu (devised by)].

Nagoya: Tōhekidō, Bunsei 9 [1826].

A folded sheet of instructions for performing calculations using kuku ("nine-nine") cards, together with thirty cards. A relative of the Chinese multiplication table, this kuku method was created to help pe ...

Shōmon Jittetsu ["The Ten Eminent Disciples of Bashō"]

[Creator's name illegible].

[Japan: creator illegible, ca. early Shōwa period (1930-40s?)].

A set of woodblock-printed matchbox-sized labels featuring portraits of the ten most highly acclaimed pupils of the famed poet Matsuo Bashō, together with examples of their poetry. The disciples are (left to ...

Shūshū ["Collection"]

Hirō Shōeidō Ishō-bu [edited by].

Kyōto: Hirō Shōeidō, Shōwa 5 [1930]. 

Volume five of an interesting series of albums featuring colour woodblock-printed mini-envelopes (pochibukuro). The set was published between Taishō 13 (1924) and Shōwa 5 (1930) and was probably produced by the publisher/editor Hirō Shōeidō to promote the c ...

Nichiei Hakurankai Kenbutsu: Sekai Isshū Sugoroku [Sightseeing at the Japan–British Exhibition: Game of a Trip Around the World]

Nakamura, Fusetsu [created by]; Maeda, Mokuhō [calligraphy by].

Tōkyō: Asahi Shinbun, Meiji 43 [1911].

A new year's supplement produced by the Asahi Shinbun newspaper to commemmorate the 1910 JapanBritish Exhibition. ...

[Six printed items relating to Japan]

[Various illustrators].

[Japan and Germany: various publishers, mid-Edo period to early Meiji period (1669-1840s?)].

Six printed items available as a set, including four Japanese copperplate-printed leaves (including three mounted on card), one copperplate-printed leaf from Montanus (showing Hirado), and one pocket-siz ...

Souvenir and programme of the visit of Prince Fushimi to England

[Author unidentified].

London: Burgess William & Co., [ca. 1907].

A crepe-paper poster detailing Prince Fushimi Sadanaru's itinerary for his 1907 trip to England and Scotland. The poster features a colour woodblock-printed floral frame and movable-type printed text. Although the state ...

Paris: P. Gayda, 1903.

A souvenir for a fête celebrating Franco-Italian relations, on crêped paper and with decorative margins woodblock-printed in Japan. The margins - four humorous "comic strips" read right to left and top to bottom - feature what appear to be sisters having their ponytails tied together by a child, a man falling for a child's prank and ...

Kedamono Shiyo Shoku-zukushi ["The Various Jobs of Beasts"]

[Utagawa], Koyoshimori [illustrated by].

[Edo (Tōkyō)]: Jōkin [Jōshūya Kinzō], Keiō 3 [1867].

A satirical giga print on the daily jobs of animals by ...

Musume no Hitokoroshi ["The Murderous Girl"]

[Author/s unidentified].

Morioka, Iwate: Sō Suekichi, Meiji 25 [1892].

A counting song in twenty verses about Ohana-san, a murderous girl who prowled the Hibara Pass in Yonezawa. An example of a kazoe-uta from the mid Meiji period, probably kappazuri (stencil) printed.

One volume, presumed ...

Chobokure Chongare: Ōshū Kasamatsu Tōge Onna Tōzoku ["Chobokure Chongare: The Woman Bandit of the Kasamatsu Pass in Ōshū"]

[Author/s unidentified].

[Japan: Kanesen, ca. mid Edo period (1820-40s)?].

Part one of the chobokure edition of the story of Kijin no Omatsu, one of the "Three Greatest Bandits of Japan". In the chobokure version of the story, Omatsu ...

Chobokure Chongare: Shirai Gonpachi Komurasaki Hiyoku Tsuka Monogatari ["Chobokure Chongare: The Story of the Grave of the Tragic Lovers Shirai Gonpachi and Komurasaki"]

[Author/s unidentified].

Bakuro-chō, [Tōkyō]: Yoshidaya Shōkichi, [ca. late Edo period (1840-60s)?].

A chobokure chongare adaptation of the story of murderer and robber Shirai Gonpachi (Hi ...

Berlin: Julius Rosenthal Filiale, 1892.

A crêped poster for a series of events, including an operetta, ballet, and music, at the Unter den Linden theatre, with decorative margins woodblockprinted in Japan and text printed with movable type in Berlin. The events were directed by Alois and Rudolf Ronacher, and featured "The World in Illustrations and Dance", with ima ...

[Three postcards designed to commemorate a track-andfield event]

[Illustrator/s unidentified].

[Kanazawa]: Shikō Rikakai, [ca. 1925].

Three abstract postcards designed by the physical science club of the Shikōtō Gakkō high school to commemorate a track-and-field event. The high school was founded in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, in 1887, and was known fo ...