Article Abstracts in English Museum of Antiquities in Leiden. Th e fact that these were Identifying the date of issue purchased by Siebold in the Spring of 1826 becomes an for Bunsei era courtesan prints by Eisen important piece of evidence for determining the issue date using the Yoshiwara-saiken for this set of prints. We checked whether the name of the courtesan is included in the Yoshiwara-saiken database, database and the mon an attribute: and whether the mon depicted could be matched up with the Keisei Dochû Sugoroku one of the mon of courtesans included in the Keisei Dochû Sugoroku designed by Gokitei Sadafusa. In our limited Taketoshi Hibiya viewpoint, we have been able to determine the issue date Satoru Satô of ten of the thirteen variant prints that exist. Yasuhiro Uchida Takatsuya Isuke and Torii Kiyonaga: Within the genre of bijin-ga is a category of pictures Th e Pioneering Publisher and Print Artist depicting the oiran. Compared to actor portraits—in of Ukiyo-e’s Golden Age which by referring to various show bills, we can make a determination easily from the part played, the actor’s Masako Tanabe name, and the performance time period—determining the date of issue of courtesan prints is accompanied by Torii Kiyonaga (1752–1815), a major ukiyo-e artist diffi culties and challenges. As a method for determining during the Tenmei era (1781–1789), introduced the the issue date of courtesan prints, we have utilized (1) the splendor of the true ôban-sized full-color print, and is Yoshiwara-saiken database and (2) mon depicted in the considered to be the print artist who heralded in the picture; moreover, we propose (3) checking them against golden age of the ukiyo-e print. At the time, the majority the collected works of Blomhoff and Siebold, which are of full-color print works were produced in the chûban or housed at the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities smaller scale image. Kiyonaga’s sets of ôban-sized prints in Leiden, in which the purchase dates in the first, fifth were considered extravagant at the time, and we might ask, and ninth years of the Bunsei era (1818, 1822 and 1826) what circumstances led to the publication of these larger are precisely known. We take up, as a specific example, prints. Th is article considers the activities of the publisher the fifty-five prints and thirteen variant prints of Keisei Takatsuya Isuke (1758?–1791) who published Kiyonaga’s Dochû Sugoroku – The Fifty-Three Stations in Yoshiwara major works and took on the ôban format in the early Parody, drawn by Keisai Eisen, and clarify the issue date Tenmei era when it was still a rarity, as it reconsiders the and motive. Th is set of fifty-fi ve prints depicts oiran of the characteristics of full-color print publication in the Tenmei hanmagakimajiri rank and above from twenty of the largest era. brothels in Yoshiwara. Each oiran is placed in one of the Looking over the biography of the publisher fifty-five stations of the Tokaidô Highway (Nihonbashi Takatsuya reveals that he was young, only in his mid 20s, and Kyoto terminal stations included); within each print in the early Tenmei era when he began to publish the is a cartouche of the nearby scenery of that station. The works of Kiyonaga. In spite of his youth he already had National Library and the Chiba City Museum of Art established an extremely resourceful environment. He collections both have fifty-five prints, although there was the husband of Mura, daughter of Takatsu Ihee III of are variant prints and the collections are not identical. the Iseya (commonly known as Ninben), a tuna merchant In comparing them with the Yoshiwara-saiken database, middleman in Nihonbashi-Muromachi. He established the highest rate of correspondence is for the autumn of a branch house of the family in Kanda Koyanagi-chô, 1824 (Bunsei 7), with 52 out of 55 prints, or 95 percent and there established himself as a publisher. According matching up. We can understand that the prints were to Ihee’s will, his daughter Mura inherited the massive issued to publicize the brothels’ return to Yoshiwara in the amount of 4,450 ryô. It is not hard to imagine that it was summer of 1825 (Bunsei 8) from the temporary facilities this money that paid for Takatsuya’s establishing himself they operated following a fire in the fourth month of as an independent publisher. Further, Takatsuya’s birth 1824. At the same time, they served to publicize 13 newly family was the print publisher Fushimiya Zenroku, and inaugurated courtesans. The thirty-nine prints which Takatsuya Isuke himself seems to be the same person as Siebold purchased in the Spring of 1826 (Bunsei 9), while Zenzô, the 3rd son of the fi rst generation of the Fushimiya visiting Tokyo are in the collection at the Dutch National family. Thus, he would have easily gained the necessary 100 know-how to be a publisher. The reprint edition of Tachibana Minkô’s Saiga Consideration for the publication shokunin burui in 1784 (Tenmei 4) was jointly published of nishiki-e at the end of the Edo period by Takatsuya and Fushimiya. Extant versions of the -from Kore ga Edo nishiki-e awase : majority of the printed books listed in the print catalogue of Takatsuya included in this work cannot be confirmed Th is is the Edo nishiki-e matching game today, but it would seem that Takatsuya was involved in publications related to that era’s kyôka boom. Also, Jun’ichi Ôkubo he seems to have been involved with the kyôka masters Yomono Akara (Ota Nanpo) and Akera Kankô, and the There is a single-sheet print, Kore ga Edo nishiki-e print artists who were closely involved with kyôka, namely awase (This is the Edo nishiki-e matching game), made in Kubo Shunman and Kitao Shigemasa. the form of a sumo banzuke listing. This catalogue lists Conversely, it is noteworthy that during the Tenmei the names of 15 types of print series, including Utagawa era Fushimiya published such especially elaborate and Toyokuni III’s Actor Print Mitate Version of the Fifty- highbrow famous nishiki-e works as Kubo Shunman’s Three Stations of the Tôkaidô and Utagawa Kuniyoshi’s Mutamagawa (Six Tama Rivers series) and Hei no Naigai Sixty-Nine Stations of the Kisokaidô, created between the (In and Out of the Moat). Further, it is fascinating to note intercalary 2nd month of 1852 to the 2nd month of the that Fushimiya was also involved in joint publications with following year. The print also includes text encouraging Takatsuya, such as Kitagawa Utamaro’s Daimyô yashiki the purchase of these prints. no Santô Kyôden (Santô Kyôden in the Daimyô residence) Th e entry for the 25th day of the 2nd month of 1853 and other Utamaro works with a kyôka master connection. in the Fujiokaya nikki provides information suggesting The kyôka masters of the day seem to have been treated the circumstances behind the creation of this catalogue. like stars so they had their portraits in full-color prints. It states on that day that immediately after the publisher Confirming from actual prints, it would seem that the began selling some deluxe edition prints, such as the majority of these images were published from around Mitate Sanpukutsui and the Actor Print Mitate Version of Tenmei 6–7 to the early Kansei era (1789–1801). The the Fifty-Th ree Stations of the Tôkaidô, they were accused portrait-like depiction of men, in works such as Kiyonaga’s of braking the law. Most of the names of the series Tôsei yûri bijin awase; Nakazu no suzumi, are likely images included in this diary entry accord with those in the Kore of actual people, such as kyôka masters. ga Edo nishiki-e awase. The Kore ga Edo nishiki-e awase Nihonbashi, closely linked to the Takatsuya, was one was published jointly around the 2nd month of 1853 by of the centers for kyôka poetry at the time. A Nihonbashi involved publishers as a means of selling the elaborately predilection can be sensed in the subjects of Kiyonaga’s printed series that were priced at several times the normal ôban-sized full color prints, focused on the courtesans of print prices. the neighboring Oka pleasure quarters and the tendency The Fujiokuya nikki entry was at most one year later to favor Ichikawa Danjûrô V. The author believes that than the publication periods of the print series listed in the more so than the works distributed amongst the usual low- Kore ga Edo nishiki-e awase catalogue. Th e diary states that margin conditions, Kiyonaga’s ôban full-color prints were these same prints were made at three price levels, namely aimed at an audience limited to the relatively wealthy, the extremely high grade prints, the somewhat high grade focusing on the cultured aficionados of the Nihonbashi prints and the normal prints. Th is gives rise to questions area. While the publisher can be discerned in only a few about the accepted theory that early impressions of a print of Kiyonaga’s major early Tenmei era works, Takatsuya is a were carefully printed, while later impressions were of a likely candidate for that role. lesser quality. In other words, this diary entry suggests the existence of deluxe prints that were printed later than the early impressions, the intentional differentiation of printing quality amongst prints of the same blocks, and the coexistence of those diff ering quality prints. Further, numbers of the series names listed in both the catalogue and the diary, and the 1849 example of the publisher Mikawaya Tetsugorô who published densely worked deluxe prints, as seen in Shichû torishimari ruishû, suggests these examples were not exceptional during the late Edo 99 period.