Japanese woodprints

Woodprints (oban)

Woodprints (other sizes)

Lithographs

Meisho-e lithographs of the Meiji era in context

Picture books (ehon) Bairei Kono : Bairei Gafu Kawamura Bumpo : Bumpo Soga Harunobu : A picture book of pebbles Hiroshige I : ehon Edo Miyage (souvenirs of Edo) (volume 4) Hokusai : ehon musashi abumi (the soldier's spur) Hokusai Manga 北斎漫画 Introduction Differences between editions Links to online digitized copies Captions in English of the 15 volumes Our 11 copies Yamada Kotaro (editor) : Miyo no Hana (volume 9) Sadahide : the opening of Yokohama (3 volumes) Shigemasa : A picture book of eighty warrior families (volume 1) Shōtei and Sadahide : Chūshin meimeigaden kōchitsu (one page) Oota Shunboku : Wakan Meiga En (A Garden of Celebrated Japanese and Chinese Paintings) (6 volumes) Katsushika Taito : a book of flowers and birds Hirase Tessai : Illutrated guide of specialties of the mountains and seas of Japan (volume 2) Utagawa Yoshiharu : a picture album of flowers and birds
	Albums of copperplate prints Okada Shuntosai and others : a booklet of copperplate prints Yuko Watanabe : Japanese types
	Illustrated novels (yomihon) Kyokutei Bakin : Kaikan Kyōki Kyōkakuden (volumes 3-3 to 4-1 = chapters 23 to 32) Kirinkan Keisan : one volume of Kyoku banachi Mantei Oga : Shaka Hasso Yamato Bunko (volumes 21, 24, 26 and 27) Kanwatei Onitake : sequel to Jiraya Setsuwa (volume 1)
	Encyclopedia Morokoshi kinmo zui (Illustrated Encyclopedia of China)

Seals, signatures and others

Helpful information from the internet

Translation of various inscriptions

Comments, corrections, additions by email to are welcome

Recent changes and additions

2024

march 30 : added a print by Ogata Gekko.
January 5 : added Illutrated guide of specialties of the mountains and seas of Japan by Hirase Tessai.

2023

December 29 : added A picture book of eighty warrior families by Kitao Shigemasa.
December 13 : replaced ad hoc page numbers by the proper folios in the Hokusai manga caption pages.
December 6 : improved the identification of flowers and birds in the album of Yoshiharu
June 16 : added 3 prints by Shōdō Kawarazaki
May 28 : added a print by Tsuchiya Koitsu

2022

November 26 : added new links and documented existing ones on the links page of Hokusai Manga
November 20 : added the captions in English of the 15 volumes of Hokusai Manga
July 4 : improved the captions of Ehon Musashi Abumi
June 16 : added the Kyoka Tokaido by Hiroshige
June 2 : added a print by Toshiaki and one by Hiroshige
June 1 : added
- 25 prints from the book Bairei Gafu by Kono Bairei.
- 15 prints from the book Miyo no Hana, vol. 9
- One print from the book Chūshin meimeigaden kōchitsu
- Two unidentified prints
- Prints of 4 immortal poets
May 16 : added prints by Asada Benji, Kunisada, Sadanobu III and Yamada Shokei
April 6 : added a book of copperplate prints by Yuko Watanabe
February 23 : added a book of copperplate prints by Okada Shuntōsai and others
February 10 : put links to images and improved the documentation of Wakan meigaen
January 4 : added Morokoshi kinmo zui (Illustrated Encyclopedia of China)

2021

November 14 : added The seals on Kisokaido prints by Eisen
October 31 : added Japanese names to the identification of Kabuki actor names
October 31 : added links to the links page in Hokusai Manga

2020

April 12 : added signatures of Kuchi-e artists
April 10 : added links to the links page in Hokusai Manga
April 10 : corrected the page for differences in Hokusai Manga

2019

November 3 : new inventory of courtesan names.
July 25 : added three prints by Toyokuni I.
July 23 : added three prints by Kunisada.
July 23 : added an anonymously authored shini-e.
April 21 : added two prints by Hirosada.
January 16 : added a print by Ginko Adachi.
January 2 : gave the correct title of the Harunobu book.

2018

October 11 : added a print by Hiroshige and one by Sadahide.
July 24 : added volume 21 of Yamato Bunko and improved presentation of the other volumes
July 20 : added the print Benkei by Sadanobu III
January 30 : added the table of contents of Wakan Meiga En
January 8 : added the subject of a Tosa school print.

2017

May 7 : added Jiraya Setsuwa by Kanwatei Onitake
May 3 : a book previously identified as Jiraya Kouhen by Hokuba is now identified as Kaikan Kyōki Kyōkakuden, with more information
March 13 : a previously unidentified print is now attributed to Yoshitoshi (thank you Frederik!)
March 13 : added the book Kyoku banachi by Kirinkan Keisan

2016

November 20 : added 4 Hokusai Manga pages on the "books" page
November 17 : added date of publication and description of a few pages of the book Bumpo Soga.
October 14 : improved captions of "48 views of Edo", and added four missing prints, on the "Woodprints (other sizes)" page
October 13 : added one triptych by Kunichika (about the Soga brothers) at the bottom of the "Kunichika" page
and one print by Kuniteru I on the "other artists" page
July 15 : added two diptychs at the bottom of the "Kunisada" page
June 11 : corrected the information about a print on the "Woodprints (other sizes)" page, now identified as by Hiroshige
February 3 : added one print by Hiroshige I and one by Kuniteru II on the "other artists" page

2015

April 11 : added prints and captions in the Meiji era prints of old masters series
April 7 : added a book by Hokuba (Books --> Hokuba)
April 4 : added captions in the book by Taito (Books --> Katsushika Taito)
April 1 : added a book by Yoshiharu (Books --> Asaka Yoshiharu)
March 31 : moved Chikanobu prints to a separate page (Woodprints (oban) --> Chikanobu)
March 30 : Some improvements in Musashi Abumi (Books --> Hokusai ... and Translations --> Musashi prints)
March 27 : new print by Ogata Gekko (woodprints oban --> other artists)

This virtual museum was made possible thanks to the several persons who allowed me to take high-resolution pictures of their woodprints and e-hon books, or provided full-size color photocopies. I would like to express here my sincere thanks to them.

I acknowledge with thanks help from Horst Graebner (the Kunisada project), Hans Olof Johansson and the participants of his Ukiyoe questions and answers forum, William Pearl (the Kuniyoshi project), Gary Gross and Frederik Balhuizen in identifying some of the prints.

I finally thank the authors of the following web pages, which were very useful to learn more about these prints:

Censor and date seals :
http://mercury.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/prints/nanushi.html
http://mercury.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/prints/zodiac.html
http://mercury.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/prints/sealdate.html

Publishers :
http:/www.printsofjapan/

Reading Kanji :
http://wwwjdic.org/

JAPANESE WOODPRINTS AND BOOKS (mostly 19th century)