御室桜に群雀(盛春) [on the print*]
omurozakura ni ore suzume (seishun)
Omuro Cherry and Flock of Tree Sparrows (Mid Spring)
御室櫻に群雀(盛春の部) [on the folio*]
omurozakura ni ore suzume (seishun no bu)
Omuro Cherry and Flock of Tree Sparrows (Mid Spring Division)
オムロザクラに群スズメ(盛春)
[*Rakusan included の部, no bu, 'division', only on the pre-printed folio labels and omitted it in the final versions of the title-captions on the woodblock prints.]
Edition I: | 楽山居 | Raku-zan Kyo | + Seal F |
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:3 is one of only a few designs in this series which include any manmade objects. The upper background is of gold ink applied in a pattern clearly meant to represent squares of gold leaf applied to a Japanese screen.
Edition I: The details of the initial edition I printing of 3 are known precisely because a copy of the delivery documents for installment two have survived. The first print run of about two hundred copies was completed June 8, 1929, and the publication date was June 10, 1929 in installment two (of fifty). However, at least one additional edition I full print run was made before the series was completed in mid 1933 and edition I closed. Two thirds of all documented copies of 3 come from edition I, including the different examples at top and below left.
A caution regarding edition I copies: Rakusan mixed his own inks and some of his experiments created problems. In printing the chestnut brown heads of the sparrows one of the inks used in the sequence of colors contains an unstable substance. This component can mobilize as oil or grease and soak entirely through the paper and create stain spots on adjacent sheets which are exactly the same shape as those brown areas. Due to the general solubility of Rakusan inks, these transferred marks cannot be repaired or restored and must be considered pernament condition faults. Edition I copies of 3 should never be stored touching any other artwork and should always be isolated with an impermeable barrier. By edition II reprinting this issue had been resolved and this stain transfer problem never occurs on those copies.
Edition II: An edition II copy of 3 is one of three sold in late 1935, the earliest firmly documentated date for any edition II reprints. One third of all documented copies of 3 come from edition II, including the example below right. The number of copies suggest that edition II was approximately equivalent in size to a full edition I print run. Rakusan might have printed a full print run in late 1935, or there could have been several smaller printings between then and 1941 when the studio closed for the war. A few copies of 3 with city-name stamps or Foster era cursive Rakusan romaji signatures show that edition II copies were still available for sale after World War II. No edition III reprintings of 3 are currently known, and it is possible that a sufficient supply of edition II copies meant that no edition III reprinting was ever needed.
Aside from the attribution markings, edition II copies of 3 look very much like those produced in edition I, but there are several subtle differences. Unfortunately, the copies illustrated below were photographed under different conditions and the color comparisons are inexact.
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3 (edition I) | 3 (edition III) |
Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Passer montanus, is today written in Japanese ornithological texts as スズメ, suzume, where it refers only to this species. However, popular usage, 雀, suzume, remains a very common general name for any sort of small sparrow or sparrow-like bird in modern Japanese. Here Rakusan uses 群, ore, 'flock (a general collective)'.
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88 | 81 | 67 |
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130-1 | 130-2 | 130-3 | 130-4 | 130-5 | 130 |
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50 | 106-1 |
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110-5 | 113-3 | 116-1 | 122-1 | 133-2 |