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Original Number

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16

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ADDITIONAL NOTES FOR THIS DESIGN

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Currently Documented Edition Signature and Seal Markings:

Edition I:	楽山居	Raku-zan Kyo	+ Seal G
Edition II:	楽山篁子生	Raku-zan Kou-shi-sei	+ Seal F

[For illustration of seals listed by seal code letter, see the Seals article. For edition characteristics applicable to this series as a whole, see the Edition article.]

Design History:
This woodblock print was produced from an original painting on silk dating from the late 1920s whose current location is unknown. The indentification of this design as number 16 is original to Rakusan who published the print as the 16th design in his series of one hundred woodblock prints called 楽山花鳥畫譜, Rakuzan Kachou Gafu, lit. 'Rakusan's Flower and Bird Print Series'.

Edition I: The first print run of about two hundred copies of 16 was finished and the design was published in December 1929 in installment eight (of fifty). (The exact printing and publication dates are unknown since no copies of the installment eight delivery documents have yet been located.) 16 proved to be a popular design, and at least one or two additional full print runs of edition I of 16 were produced before mid 1933 when the series was completed and edition I printing ceased. As a result, four fifths of all documented copies of 16 come from edition I printings, including the different example copies illustrated at top above and at below left.

16alt, a woodblock print of an alternate sketch of the same design subject was issued the month before the initial printing of 16 as a preview advertisement (see Related Designs below).

Edition II: 16 was reprinted in edition II at least once between 1936 and 1941. One fifth of the documented copies of 16 come from edition II, including the copy illustrated at below right. Rakusan approved of the way this reprinting turned out, and he included an edition II copy of 16 in a presentation album from August 1941. Edition II copies of 16 with city-name stamps or Foster era cursive Rakusan romaji signatures indicate that supplies were sufficient to support postwar sales. Currently, no examples of edition III printings of 16 have been found, and it is possible that a need to reprint 16 after the war never materialized.

The background colors in both editions are so pale that in some images the background may appear to be unprinted. However, in edition I the overall background is actually a pale yellow, and in edition II it has a pink or peach cast. In both editions the background has bands of turquoise bokashi in the lower half. Although the ink colors in edition II are typically more saturated than those of edition I, the differences in the examples below appear greater than they do in person, especially for the various greens.

16 (edition I)	16 (edition II)

Copies in Public Collections:
Edition II: Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA; (1942.44.f) [illustrated online]
[from an August 1941 presentation album].

Species Illustrated:
Hardy Begonia, Begonia grandis, 秋海棠, しゅうかいどう, シュウカイドウ, shuu-kaidou, is a Japanese native herbaceous plant. The Japanese name means literally 'autumn flowering-crabapple', which refers both to the bloom time and the typical white and/or pink flowers.

The bird Rakusan illustrated in 16 is neither a Japanese native nor a readily identifiable exotic. It may actually be an artistic amalgam rather than a real bird. The orange rump and prominent white patch on the wing are good field marks for Daurian Redstart which Rakusan depicted later in this series in design 61, but that species has no blue feathers and the rest of the plumage is not quite right for that species. In the title-caption for 16 Rakusan calls the bird 瑠璃鶲,るりびたき, ルリビタキ, ruri-bitaki, lit. 'lapis lazuli flycatcher'. This is the usual name for Siberian Bluechat/Bluetail (Red-flanked Bluetail, Orange-flanked Bushrobin), Tarsiger cyanurus, 瑠璃鶲, a native Japanese bird which Rakusan later illustrated in 114 in the 36 Series. However, Siberian Bluechat has a blue rump, evenly blue wings, and other different coloration details which preclude identifying the bird in 16 with that species. It remains possible that in 16 Rakusan was depicting an as yet unidentified exotic species and mistakenly thought of it as a flycatcher or a bluechat of some kind.

Rakusan typically does not mention small prey animals in his title-captions. In 16 the bird is peering at two small crickets. The general name for any field (or garden) cricket (family Gryllidae) is 蟋蟀, こおろぎ, コオロギ, koorogi, 'cricket'. The particular species illustrated here is probably Oriental Garden Cricket (Emma Field Cricket), Teleogryllus emma, 閻魔蟋蟀, えんまこおろぎ, エンマコオロギ, en-ma koorogi, lit. 'town-witch cricket'.