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Note to Readers

The selection of artists and publishers is based upon their activity and importance to the history of Japanese woodblock prints from the late sixteenth to the early twentieth century.

Artists

The artists are presented in a chronological order, to provide a visual account of the development of Japanese woodblock prints from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. The name of the artist used in the header reflects the best-known name, e.g. Hokusai and not Shunrō, Iitsu etc. The Japanese name system for artists during the Edo period was extremely complex. Apart from family names (uji), we distinguish between childhood names (yōmyō) and given/common names (zokushō/ zokumyō). Print artists had special artist surnames (gasei) reflecting the painting tradition they followed (ha), e.g. Torii, Utagawa, or Kikugawa. Artist names (azana) such as Toyokuni or Kunisada were preceded by various art names (gagō) that frequently ended in -sai or -tei like Chōbunsai, Gototei, or Ichiyūsai. To confer a posthumous Buddhist name (hōmyō) after death was a common practice but these names are not known for all artists.

Publishers

The publishers are presented in a chronological order based on dates (estimated or known) when each enterprise was started. The list of selected works consists of series otherwise stated.

Captions and Dating

The captions to the plates include artist name, series title, print title, publisher, medium, size, and date. All dates before January 1, 1873 (the day when Japan started to use the Gregorian calendar) refer to the traditional Japanese lunisolar calendar. A date in the lunisolar calendar is not equivalent to the “same” date in the Gregorian calendar, e.g. the fifteenth day of the twelfth month 1864 is not equivalent to December 15, 1864 but in fact January 12, 1865, almost one month later. Dates since 1873 refer to today’s Gregorian calendar.

Table of approximate print sizes

	Width x Height	Width x Height
ōban	27 x 39 cm	10.6 x 15.4 in.
hosoban	15 x 33 cm	5.9 x 13 in.
chūban	19 x 26 cm	7.5 x 10 in.
aiban	23 x 33 cm	9 x 13 in.
hashira-e	12 x 73 cm	4.7 x 28.7 in.
ōtanzaku	39 x 17 cm	15.4 x 6.7 in.
shikishiban	19 x 22 cm	7.5 x 8.7 in.