Nantei gafu kōhen 楠亭画譜　後編

FSC-GR-780.463

Commentary by Ellis Tinios

Posted August 1, 2017

Nantei gafu, kōhen (Nantei’s painting album, part two) was published in Kyoto in 1826 by Yoshidaya Shinbē (Buneidō 文衛堂), twenty-three years after the publication of Nantei gafu by Metogiya Gihē (蓍屋儀兵衛), also of Kyoto (FSC-GR-780.462.1-3).While the title explicitly links this book to the earlier publication, the two differ in format. Nantei gafu was issued in three volumes printed in black ink only. A table of contents at the beginning of each volume identifies the scenes depicted. Comic verse (kyōka 狂歌) were incorporated into each illustration. Nantei gafu, kōhenis complete in just one volume. The key block was printed in in a subdued, pale black with further blocks adding a range of colors to the images. There is no table of contents and the book was conceived without poems forming part of its contents. The two are, however, identical in terms of their content.

This bookopens with a florid two-page preface written in an assured cursive hand by Noguchi Hireo (野口礼雄), a Kyoto-based poet active in the first half of the nineteenth century. This preface is dated Bunsei 6 (1823). The colophon gives Bunsei 9 (1826) as the date of production. Such discrepancies are often encountered in Edo-period books; they indicate delays between the submission of the finished manuscript and its publication. Noguchi’s preface is followed by an unsigned single-page introductory inscription (daiji) that simply reads “genre book” (jinbutsu gafu 人物画譜; literally “album of figures”). A decorative ground of bamboo leaves printed in light green frames those four characters. Thirty double-page illustrations follow. They portray life in Kyoto over the course of a year, ending on an auspicious note with four scenes from kyōgen 狂言(comic plays). In terms of content Nantei gafu, kōhen closely resembles it predecessor except that unlike Nantei gafu it does not include any activities taking place in interiors; every image is set out-of-doors, mostly on the streets of Kyoto.

The most distinctive feature of the book is the subtle palette employed by the artist: various shades of green, blue, brown, and grey predominate with bright pinks enlivening many of the images, while here and there there is a splash of bright yellow. Jack Hillier (1912–1995), the trail-blazing British scholar of the book in Japan who played an important advisory role in the formation of the Pulverer Collection, wrote, “A well-printed, unfaded copy of Nantei Gafu Kohen [sic] represents one of the high points of Japanese colour-printed gafu.” [1]

The care than went into the production of this book is underlined by the inclusion on the final page, after the artist’s printed signature, of the names of the block-cutter (chōkō 彫工) Inoue Jihē (井上治兵衛) and the printer (surikō 摺工) Kutsuki Saburō 掘喜三郎. Exceptionally block-cutters are identified in Edo-period books; it is virtually unprecedented for the name of the printer to appear in them. Their names are followed by Buneidō, the “formal name” (堂号dōgō) of the publisherYoshidaya Shinbē, who is here identified as the seichō 製帖 (literally, “maker of the album”). Block-cutter, printer, and publisher were recognized for the critical role each played in the creation of this book. A printed sheet pasted onto the inside back cover records 1826 as the production date (kannen 刊年) and lists of the names of Yoshidaya Shinbē and five other Kyoto booksellers (Kōto shoshi 皇都書肆) as joint publishers and co-owners (gōshi 合梓) of the printing blocks. The expense and risk involved in the production of a book of such quality was often shared by a number of publishers/booksellers.

The high quality of the book is seen not only in the level of the block-cutting and the color printing but in the high-grade paper employed and in the covers. The latter are embossed with a design of a vine laden with gourds that runs continuously from the front to the back cover. The Pulverer copy is a fine printing of the book in good condition.

Selected readings:
Louise Norton Brown, Block Printing & Book Illustration in Japan (London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd.: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1924).

Jack Hillier, The Art of the Japanese Book, 2 vols. (London: Sotheby’s Publications by Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd., 1987).

C. H. Mitchell, with the assistance of Osamu Ueda, The Illustrated Books of the Nanga, Maruyama, Shijo and Other Related Schools of Japan. A Biobibliography (Los Angeles: Dawson’s Book Shop, 1972).

Kenji Toda, Descriptive Catalogue of the Japanese and Chinese Illustrated Books in the Ryerson Library of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: 1931; repr., Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Publishing, 2004). (Listed as Jinbutsu Gwafu.)

Copies in other collections:

Art Institute of Chicago

British Museum, London

Ebi Collection (private) (see Art Research Center, Ritsumeikan University online database)

New York Public Library, New York

[1] Hillier 1987, vol. 2, 707.