Directory of Woodblock Print Publishers

Japanese woodblock prints were the work of a team: the artist drew the design, carvers cut the blocks, printers made the impressions and a publisher financed and sold the result. The publisher's seal is printed on most sheets, and reading it helps to date an impression and to tell an early edition from a later one.

Edo period houses

• Tsutaya Jūzaburō. Published Utamaro's finest portraits of beauties and the actor prints of Sharaku in the late eighteenth century.
• Nishimuraya Yohachi (Eijudō). Publisher of Hokusai's Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, including the Great Wave.
• Hoeidō (Takenouchi Magohachi). Published the first Hoeidō edition of Hiroshige's Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō.
• Uoya Eikichi. Published Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo.

Meiji period houses

In the Meiji era, publishers adopted imported aniline pigments and new subjects. Akiyama Buemon published Yoshitoshi's One Hundred Aspects of the Moon, one of the great series of the period. Meiji prints usually carry a printed date and the publisher's name and address in the margin.

Shin-hanga publishers

• Watanabe Shōzaburō. Founder of the shin-hanga movement, who published landscapes by Kawase Hasui and portraits by Itō Shinsui. His seals changed over time and are used to date impressions.
• Doi Teiichi. Published landscapes by Hasui and Tsuchiya Kōitsu from the 1930s onwards.
• Unsōdō. A Kyoto house known for printed books and the designs of Kamisaka Sekka.
• Self-published artists. Yoshida Hiroshi supervised his own printing, and his self-printed impressions carry the jizuri seal.

Later editions and reproductions

Several respected workshops, including the Adachi Institute and Takamizawa, cut new blocks of classic designs. These are finely made prints in their own right, but they are reproductions rather than period impressions, and the publisher's seal makes the difference clear.

What a seal tells you

• Which house issued the impression, and so whether it belongs to a first edition.
• An approximate date, especially where seals changed over a publisher's life.
• With censor's seals, the year and sometimes the month of approval in the Edo period.

Related references

• Glossary of Ukiyo-e Print Terms
• Glossary of Washi Paper
• Hokusai's Great Wave and its editions
• Framing Japanese prints