Studio: international art (58.1913)

The Dating of Japanese Colour-Prints from 1842

be mentioned Hiroshige's " Hundred Views of
Yedo," " Thirty-sk Views of Fuji," and Kunisada's
" Memorial Portrait of Hiroshige." The inference
is, that, during this year, the use of the Aratame
seal was suspended, but I have not yet been able
to ascertain why. In the Ram year, 1859, and the
subsequent years, Aratame is incorporated with
the date in one round seal. The oval date-seal is,
as far as my investigations go, very rarely found
from 1842 to 1851 inclusive. It makes its first
regular appearance in the Rat year of 1852.

When an undated print has one or two of the
Censors' seals (for they are always found singly or in
pairs), we are able to place the date of its execution
between the 4th day of the 6th month of 1842 and
the end of 1851. In many cases, however, we can by
a knowledge of other facts, narrow down this interval
of nine and a half years considerably. Let us take
for example, a print with a seal of the censor
"Tanaka" and the signature of the artist "Kochoro
Kunisada." We know that the latter dropped this
signature on the 7 th day of the New Year 1844.
Hence the date must be between the 6th month of
1842 and the latter date.

When a print bears a date-seal as well as Censors'
seals, we can date it with absolute accuracy. For
instance, the seals of " Fuku " and " Muramatsu,"
accompanied by the date-seal of Rat 4, gives the
4th month of 1852, as no other Rat year occurs in
the period during which Censors' seals were used.

If one of the zodiacal years and an Uru or
" Intercalary " month are observed in a seal, these
alone, apart from the presence of Censors' or
Aratame seals, give us the exact date. The
reason is that, during the period under con-
sideration, no two of the the .same zodiacal year
have an intercalary month. Thus Rat, intercalary,
must be 1852, as no other Rat year has, during
this period, an intercalary month.

When a print has a round Aratame seal accom-
panied by a date-seal, we can accurately determine
its date from the fact that such a combination is
found only from the.nth month of 1853 till the end
of 1857. In like manner, we can accurately date any
print on which are found the date and Aratame seals
incorporated in one round seal, as it is only from the
beginning of 1859 onwards, that such incorporation
takes place.

When therefore a date-seal bears no zodiacal
year sign, but only the Uru character followed
by a numeral, we can determine which year is
meant by noticing whether it is accompanied
by or incorporated with the Aratame seal. Thus
Uru five when accompanied by the round Aratame
316

seal must be 1857, as this is the only year in which
an intercalary 5 th month occurs during the period
when the round Aratame seal accompanies the
date-seal. If, however, Uru five is incorporated
with the Aratame seal in one round seal, the date
must be 1865, as this is the only intercalary 5th
month after such incorporation.

In order to understand the seals which accompany
these notes, a few words are necessary regarding the
months. The Japanese characters for years and
months are never expressed, being always under-
stood ; and the following explanations will be placed
in brackets. Each month has not only a numeral,
but also a name. In the first month, the numeral
for one (Ichi) is not used, a character reading "Sho"
being employed instead. Thus a date-seal with the
characters Uski and Sho means Ox (year), January
(month). The numerals representing the 3rd and
the 5 th to the 9th months, are used in both the
ancient and modern forms.

The 4th month is generally represented by
its ancient or modern numeral, the former of
which is easily confused with the ancient form
of six. The difference between the two may
be detected by the absence in four of the small
vertical stroke, which is the characteristic of six.
Occasionally, however, we find that the name of
the 4th month, U(-zuki), April, is used in place
of the numeral. For example, the characters
Tatsu- U mean Dragon (year), April (month). This
form is, however, very rare after 1842. The 10th
and nth months are represented by their numerals.
The 12th month is generally represented by its
numeral, which is, however sometimes replaced by
a character called Goku (getsu) or Shiwasu, which
corresponds to our December. This character is
the Sinico-Japanese pronunciation of a seal familiar
to all collectors of Japanese colour-prints in the
round seal found on almost every print which
does not bear either Censors' or Aratame seals.
(It should be noted that those prints which were
in stock on the date of the first proclamation, have
both the Censors' seals and this one, thus enabling
us to assign their approximate date of execution to
the first half year of 1842.) This Gohc seal is
pronounced in Japanese proper " Kiwame" and
has been variously interpreted as " of special
quality," "of the highest excellence," "a fine
impression," &c. One of its meanings is " the
limit," and it is in this last sense that it is used in
representing December, i.e. the limit month.

The Uru or intercalary month is written either in
its full or in its abbreviated form. In the latter
case, the interior portion of the full character is used.