This article presents every seal known to have been used by Rakusan. Also included are seals of other persons occasionally associated with Rakusan artworks or with artworks sometimes attributed to Rakusan. To make referring to the various seals easier, each of the seals have been arbitrarily assigned unique designations based on letters of the alphabet. These same designations are used in all of the research presented on this site.

The seal images are not all shown at the same scale. Seals on black backgrounds appear as monochrome negative versions of the same seal on light or polychrome backgrounds. Both of these versions are here considered to be the same basic seal. The same polychrome seals can vary in hue from vermilion red to brown depending on the particular design, but other colors are found on a very few specific designs. Further discussion of the relative sizes, distributions, and other characteristics of each seal will eventually appear in the text section immediately following this table.

RAKUSAN SEALS

A	A	B	B	B2
C	C	C	W
D	E	F	G
H	H	[I]	I	J
K	L	M	N	O
P	Q	Q	[R]	R
S	T	U	V	W (see after C)
X	X	Y	Y	Z
AA

SEALS OF RAKUSAN PRINT COLLECTORS

Collector 1

Collector 2

Collector 3

Collector 4

DOUBTFUL ATTRIBUTIONS: 洋草花譜 You Kusa-bana Fu Western Flowers Series

'Rakusan'

'Sou-un'

'Hodo' [Takemura]

Seals are classified as primary when they are produced as part of the production process for the artwork, and secondary when they are applied later, often when the artwork is distributed. Some copies may have both primary and secondary seals.

Rakusan used at least one of his personal seals as a mark of authorship and approval on every artwork he distributed. The only artworks which do not have seals are ones which he retained in his personal possession. Therefore if one encounters a purported 'Rakusan' artwork which does not have a seal, that is immediate grounds for concern about attribution or authenticity. Rakusan frequently used the same seal design for different purposes and printed the seal using different methods. On woodblock prints the primary Rakusan seals (and any signatures) are almost always also woodblock printed. He carved a new version of the primary seal into the wooden block for each different design. Therefore, each of these seals vary at least slightly from design to design, even when carved to the same pattern. Rakusan also carved his own stamp seals which he applied as primary seals to original artworks and correspondence, and as secondary seals to woodblock prints. Variations based on the amount of ink applied to the stamp seal also are to be expected.

Rakusan seal usage can be classified into two types: major and minor. Rakusan tended to use the same seal on new artworks produced during specific periods of time.

Seal H occurs on only one design in this set. It is also the only seal printed in gold ink and occurring without an accompanying signature. This single design is so far known only from first edition copies, and may not have been reprinted. The other 99 designs have red seals A, B, F, or G.

Notice that seal B is known only from reprintings, and seal G and H only from the first edition. Since the third edition was smaller, it is less well known. It remains possible that some additional seals were used in this period. Please contact us if you have a copy with a third edition watermark and a seal other than seal B!

© 2005, 2006, Dr Michael J P Nichols