Small Format Prints:
Ukiyo-e Reproductions and Shin Hanga
Small hand-printed woodblock prints, such as the prints shown above, started to appear in large numbers in the 1930s to fill the need for inexpensive souvenirs and greeting cards. They are variously referred to as Post Card size prints (hagakiban 葉書版), Miniature prints and Small prints and range in size from approximately 2 x 3 in. to 3.5 x 6 in.
The publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō (1885-1962) lists the sizes of these small prints in his 1936 catalog as follows:1
Post Card (hagakiban) Size – about 15.6 x 8.5 cm (6.1 x 3.3 in.)
Medium (chū) Card Size – about 9.7 x 6 cm (3.8 x 2.4 in.)
Small (shō) Card Size – about 7.2 x 5.1 cm (2.8 x 2 in.)
Octavio (yatsugiri) Size - about 8.5 x 13 cm (3.3 x 5.1 in.)
Narrow (hoso) Card Size - about 15.3 x 6.6 cm (
Publisher's who issued small prints included Takemura Hideo, Shōbidō Tanaka, Doi Sasaichi (Doi Hangaten), Baba Nobuhiko, Bijutshusha, Shima Art Company, and Watanabe Shōzaburō.
Watanabe Shōzaburō in his 1936 catalog specifically notes that “The colour-prints ranging from Small Card to Post Card are used for Christmas cards.”2 He also provides the following instructions for placing orders for these prints:
Order for Colour Prints
Hitherto my shop has frequently received orders for colour prints. The artists of Western painting place orders for a mere interest’s sake to distribute them among their friends. Menu cards, X’mas cards, posters, calendars, colour-print portraits, gardens, gifts connected with some remembrance, etc., have been made to order. Because materials and expert workmen are always ready, orders are promptly executed and completed with great care.3
It is not unusual to see these small prints mounted directly onto a special-ordered Holiday Card, such as the one pictured below.
The designs for these small prints were often taken from previously designed ōban-size prints or were newly created by both well-known, little known or unknown artists. Some of the designs bear signatures or seals of known artists, some bear signatures or seals that cannot be read or linked with known artists and some have no signatures or seals at all, making attribution to a specific artist difficult, if not impossible.
紫園
Shien
One commonly encountered seal reading “Shien” was, according to several sources (http://shotei.com/artists/shien/shien.htm and Artelino), a “house seal” of Watanabe Publishing, with the actual designs being created by artists such as Shōtei, Ohara Shōson (Kōson), Kawase Hasui, Kasamatsu Shirō and Tsuchiya Kōitsu, among the best-known shin hanga designers of the period.
紫園
Shien
Many of these small prints are strikingly similar in design, as we can see below in the prints.
City in the Rain
Kinkakuji in Snow
In many cases it is unknown which publisher and artist originated a particular design, but the publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō made clear his concern about copied designs in the copyright notice appearing in his 1936 catalogue, as follows:
In case any picture already issued reproduced or copied by the third person without permission, he will be sued and judged as a violation of copyright, that is, as the infringement of property right.
There had been examples that a few pictures issued by my shop were reproduced or copied without permission previous to the Great Earthquake disaster [1923] and after it. On each occasion the violator had to pay damages and to write letters of apology.4
The subject matter for the bulk of these small shin hanga prints is landscapes, particularly of well-known scenic spots throughout Japan, and kacho-ga (bird and flower prints).
The small reproductions of ukiyo-e prints, copy, or borrow, from Edo-period designs and also feature landscapes along with bijinga and pictures of birds-and-flowers (kacho-ga). In his 1962 catalog the publisher Watanabe notes the following:
Some prints of Medium and Post-card sizes are pictures reproduced from the masterpieces by Hiroshige, Hokusai and Utamarao, etc. The old color prints of Regular size are taken from photographs in diminished sizes and are pasted on woodblocks. Then black lines are engraved first, after which color-blocks are made from the sheets colored on the black lines. Because they are diminished to about one-tenth of the actual regular size, the engraving requires much skill and technique.5
By “reproductions” we mean the masterpieces of the great Ukiyoe (color –print) masters reprinted as nearly as possible like the originals, with the same technique and still as in olden times. Such reproductions serve the purpose of enabling us to appreciate the composition and coloring of the originals, which are usually very rare.6
after Hiroshige's Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge at Atake,
No. 58 from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, 1857
Paper size: 5 5/16 x 3 1/2 in. (13.5 x 8.9 cm)
Image size: 5 1/8 x 3 5/16 in. (13 x 8.4 cm)
IHL Cat. #1444
Note: This collection’s small prints by Hiroshige, from his 1856 series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei), were all published by Yokohama-based publisher Takemura Hideo.
1 Catalogue of Wood-Cut Colour Prints of S. Watanabe, S. Watanabe, 1936
2 ibid, p.23.
3 ibid, p. 126.
4 ibid. p. 123.
5 Catalogue of Woodcut Color Prints by Contemporary Japanese Artists, S. Watanabe, 1962, p. 4.
6 ibid. p. 84.
Prints in Collection
Modern Ukiyo-e Reproductions and Modified Designs of Original Ukiyo-e Prints
click on image for details
Small Format Reproduction,
undated (c. 1930s)
after Isoda Koryūsai's Fujibakama, from the series Genji in Fashionable Modern Guise,
orig. 1770/1772
publisher: Takemura Hideo
image: 5 7/16 x 3 9/16 in.
sheet: 5 9/16 x 3 11/16 in.
IHL Cat. #1453
Small Format Reproduction,
undated (c. 1930s)
after Kitagawa Utamaro's Two Geisha and Porter
in Wind and Rain at Night, from
Vol. 2 of the book Flowers of the Four Seasons,
publisher: unknown
image: 3 3/8 x 5 5/16 in.
sheet: 3 11/16 x 5 3/4 in.
IHL Cat. #1535
Small Format Reproduction,
date unknown
after Harunobu's A Bijin Writing Poem Slips for the Tanabata Festival (Round Window),
orig. 1750/1770
publisher: unknown
image: 5 3/4 x 4 1/16 in.
sheet: 5 13/16 x 4 1/8 in.
IHL Cat. #1534