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Original Number

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68

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ADDITIONAL NOTES FOR THIS DESIGN

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Currently Documented Edition Watermark and Signature and Seal Markings:

Edition I:	watermark I	楽山居	Raku-zan Kyo	+ Seal A
Edition II:	watermark II	楽山篁子生	Raku-zan Kou-shi-sei	+ Seal B
Edition III:	watermark III	楽山篁子生	Raku-zan Kou-shi-sei	+ Seal B*
Edition IV:	watermark III	楽山居	Raku-zan Kyo	+ Seal A*	[posthumous Unsōdō reprints]

*For edition III Rakusan raised the placement of the signature and seal slightly in order to accommodate adding a secondary romaji cursive signature below.
For edition IV Unsōdō returned the signature and seal to the original location used in edition I and edition II.

[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 68 is original to Rakusan who published the print as the 68th 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: Initial edition I publication of 68 was in February 1932 (or perhaps slightly later) in installment thirty-four (of fifty). The relatively small number of documented edition I copies suggests that edition I was limited to the single, original first print run of about two hundred copies. Nevertheless edition I copies comprise half of all those documented from lifetime editions. The different copies illustrated at top and below left are typical of edition I.

Edition II: 68 had sold well enough that Rakusan reprinted this design in edition II in numbers equivalent to those produced in edition I, and these edition II copies comprise the other half of all those documented. Although only certainly constrained between 1935 and 1940, storage of some of the wooden printing blocks for 68 in newspaper dated 1937 may indicate the actual date of this single edition II reprinting.

It is not currently possible to distinguish edition I and edition II copies of 68 based on color and technique because all copies from these two editions look very much alike. (Unfortunately, the images available for illustration here were produced under different lighting conditions, and the actual colors are more similar than they appear in these edition I and edition II examples.) Since an edition II copy was used to color match the inks for edition IV, it too has closely similar coloration (see below). Therefore, distinguishing among copies of these editions is reliant on their attribution markings. The copy illustrated at center below is typical of edition II.

Edition III: Because copies of edition III of 68 are extremely rare, it it must have been limited to a single print run much smaller than those typically made earlier. Edition III reprinting of 68 could potentially be any time between 1948 and 1955, but again storage of some of the wooden printing blocks in newspaper dated 1953 may indicate the actual date of this print run.

As noted above, for edition III the placement of the signature and seal combination is slightly higher to accommodate a secondary romaji cursive signature beneath it. Rakusan also made dramatic color changes for edition III, including making the greens much darker and duller as shown in the example copy at right below. Unfortunately, this only available image is of a copy which appears somewhat faded, and it is not clear to what extent other colors have been altered.

68 (edition I)

68 (edition II)

68 (edition III)

Posthumous Edition IV: In 2015 the famous Kyoto publishing house Unsōdō Co., Ltd. (芸艸堂), bought all of the original Rakusan printing blocks, together with several example prints and the remaining stocks of edition III watermarked paper. In 2021 Unsōdō began issuing for sale reprinted copies of 68. These new copies were printed for Unsōdō using the original Rakusan blocks and edition III watermarked paper by the well-known contemporary Kyoto woodblock printer, 中山誠人, Nakayama Masato. The unique combination of watermark and signature and seal markings (see above) serve to define a new, posthumous edition IV. Edition IV copies are also readily identifiable from the Unsōdō attribution markings printed in the lower portion of the left margin. The inscription reads: 芸艸堂版 摺 中山, unsoudou-ban suri nakayama, 'Unsōdō edition, printing: Nakayama'. In all of the original earlier editions the left margin is left blank.

68 (Unsōdō edition IV)

Reprinting in edition IV was in large part determined by the condition of the printing blocks after decades of disuse. There were only three lifetime printings of 68, and this limited use may have contributed to the intact survival of the wooden blocks for this design. Despite having the original blocks to work with, reprinting 68 for Unsōdō was very difficult because none of Rakusan's printing instructions or ink formulae have survived. It is not known how many impressions Rakusan required to create any of the original three editions of 68 or the order in which the multiple impressions had to be printed. It was necessary for a master printer like Nakayama to experiment extensively in order to recreate Rakusan's results as closely as possible. For the posthumous edition IV Nakayama attempted to match the ink colors used in an edition II example obtained with the purchase of the wooden blocks. Unsōdō reports that Nakayama achieved their edition IV reprinting of 68 from the original fifteen wooden block faces (all but one of both sides of eight wooden slabs) using a total of seventy-five overprinted impressions. (Note that many of the same block faces were used to print several different color areas. See below.)

Recent examples (courtesy of Unsōdō) of a few of the wooden printing blocks used to print all four editions of 68:

key block	key block (detail)
color block "A"	color block "B"

Species Illustrated:
Lotus (Sacred Lotus), Nelumbo nucifera, is usually called 蓮, 藕, はす, ハス, hasu, 'lotus', which is also a general name for any kind of lotus. Botanically, the species is today often called instead 大賀蓮, おおがはす, オオガハス ooga-hasu, lit. 'god lotus'. Lotus is culturally very important for its religious connections as well as for food and ornamental usage. There are many names which can be applied to this species, and several other kinds of plants have names which incorporate names for 'lotus'. Here Rakusan chose another name, 紅蓮 (a compound of 紅 beni 'crimson' and 蓮 hasu 'lotus'); which has here a special reading, guren, 'crimson, crimson lotus flower'.

Common (River) Kingfisher, Alcedo atthis, 翡翠, 川蝉, かわせみ, カワセミ, kawa-semi, 'kingfisher', is native to much of Eurasia, including Japan. Rakusan was very fond of this species, and he used it in several artworks. Although there are other native kingfishers in Japan, Rakusan chose to depict only this species.