八重椿に蜜蜂 [adapted title]
yaetsubaki ni mitsubachi
Double Camellia and Honeybee
八重椿にミツバチ
Edition I (only edition): | 楽山篁子生 | Raku-zan Kou-shi-sei | + Seal C |
[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. 129-5 is the Fan Series design with fan shape 5 in the 129 Double Camellia theme. Like all other designs in this series, 129-5 was only produced in a single print run, and few copies are currently documented.
Theme History:According to the delivery documents for Fan Series installment ten, the woodblock prints of the 129 Double Camellia theme were printed in March 1935 and distributed March 25, 1935 in installment ten (of twelve). The series as originally announced would have seen this installment published in October 1934, but there had previously been several delays and skipped delivery months. On these documents Rakusan used 八重椿, yae tsubaki, 'double camellia', as the theme title and also as the title of 36 Series design 129 published at the same time.
At least some of the double camellia designs in this theme were adapted from sketches originally created in the late 1920s during the planning of design 26 in the earlier 100 Series (see below).
Description:The woodblock print of 129-5 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:
![]() 129-5 as originally drawn (reconstruction) |
Although he had access to many varieties of camellias, Rakusan depicted only three different kinds in his woodblock prints, and examples of each appear as themes. Links to the other two kinds of Rakusan camellias are at numbers 116 and 126, which in turn link to their own additional related designs.
The general name for any bee, wasp, or hornet is 蜂, はち, ハン, hachi. Here Rakusan apparently has intended to show a honeybee, 蜜蜂, みつばち, ミツバチ, mitsubachi, (lit. honey-bee).
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129-1 | 129-2 | 129-3 | 129-4 | 129 |
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26alt | 26 |
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104-5 | 105-3 | 107-5 | 115-5 | 136-4 |