[modernly supplied general title]
立羽蝶に檜
tateha chou ni hinoki
Comma Butterfly and Hinoki Cypress
タテハチョウにヒノキ
Edition I (only edition): | 楽山篁子生 | Raku-zan Kou-shi-sei | + Seal A |
[For illustration of seals listed by seal code letter, see the Seals article.]
Series History and Definitions:Rakusan arranged the Fan Series prints into shared-subject groups typically consisting of one design in each of five different fan silhouette shapes. Each of these groups of Fan Series designs are united by a corresponding polychrome 36 Series design which defines the subject. Each shared-subject Fan Series group and its 36 Series design together comprise a theme (画題, gadai).
Rakusan did not include the Fan Series in his main sequence numbering. Therefore, the original number used for each of the 36 Series prints has been modified to identify the Fan Series members of its theme. The five different fan silhouette shapes have been here assigned arbitrary numbers 1 through 5. To indicate a fan design these shape designations are added to the 36 Series number separated by a hyphen. In themes which contain duplicated fan shapes, one has been arbitrarily designated A and the other B. 105-4 indicates that this is a Fan Series design with fan shape 4 in the 105 Butterfly theme. Like all other designs in this series, 105-4 was only produced in a single print run, and few copies are currently documented.
Theme History:Butterflies and other insects often occur as subsidiary elements in Rakusan designs. However, in all of the other themes where they appear, those themes are defined by kinds of plants. The 105 Butterfly theme uniquely reverses the focus; its theme subject is defined instead by a kind of insect, and the plants are non-thematic subsidiary elements. Since 105-5 includes only butterflies, it is evident that the butterfly alone defines this theme since it is the only element common to all of these designs.
Description:The woodblock print of 105-4 was modeled closely on an actual-size original sumi sketch which although lost can be reconstructed by digitally reversing the image of the woodblock print:
![]() 105-4 as originally drawn (reconstruction) |
The butterfly in 105-4 is one of the problems for identification. It is evidently intended to be a kind of nyphalid butterfly (family Nymphalidae) 立羽蝶, たてはちょう, タテハチョウ, tateha-chou. The form most closely resembles Japanese species in the nymphalid genus Polygonia, which are called commas or anglewings in English. The closest match is Asian Comma, Polygonia c-aureum, 黄立羽, キタテハ, ki-tateha, loosely 'yellow nymphalid'. Although the shape of the wings is similar, the patterns on the wings of the native Japanese species are different from those of the example in 105-4.
The cypress is probably Hinoki (or Japanese) Cypress, Chamaecyparis obtusa, 檜(木), 桧(木), ひのき, ヒノキ, hinoki. The Japanese name has been borrowed into English.
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
105-1 | 105-2 | 105-3 | 105-5 | 105 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
105-2 | 105-5 | 113-5 | 115-4 |
![]() |
84 |