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Hi. Can any body out there translate the writng on this art? Is it dated? If so, what year was it created?

Any info at all will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Chip

You most likely have a Japanese woodblock print dating to around 1860 - 1870.

The top seal is the artist signature - Kunichika

The bottom seal is the carver's seal. It says "hori Ota Tashichi" - "carved by Ota Tashichi"

If you post an image of the print, there's likely a lot more could be said about it.

Thanks a million for the super fast reply. The information you provided is very interesting...and the dates make great sense, in hindsight. I bought the print, a couple nights ago, at a very modest auction. It was amongst a group of picture frames that I wanted...the frames themselves dating to about 1870-1880ish. One of the other American prints actually was dated 1875, i.e "The Two Farewells."

Does a Japanese woodblock print by Kunichika have much value...should I reconsign the art work back to auction? Though I do rather like it, and may keep it for my personal collection.

By the way, I do appoligize for the poor image/ photography...as you probably know, this email upload only accepts 100mb photos.

Once again, thanks so much for taking the time to reply to my post.

Thanks very much for the translation. I posted my thanks yesterday, too, along with a photo of the art...but apparently it got lost in cyberspace.

Anyway, here is a photo (albeit poor quality) of the woodblock print. If you could shed anymore light on it, it would be most appreciated.

Thanks again, very much. Chip

Well, this appears to be one panel of a larger composition - likely a triptych. It's of a Kabuki play but I'm having a tough time reading the actor's names. I think the one on the left is "Gato" something or other and the one on the right is "Ichimura" but I can't figure out the rest of his name either. Possibly Gato Kataoka and Ichimura Uzaemon? I dunno, the characters don't make sense to me.

Anyway, it looks to be done about 1860 or so - but the date seal is too small to see.

It has a rather small range of colors, so that would indicate a printing rather late in the run - when the blocks were wearing a bit and less care was taken with the printing. And the artist - though I'm sure many will take issue with me on this - was kind of a "hack" with a rather voluminous output of generally mediocre prints.

I would say it has a rather modest value - equiavalent prints are sold on eBay every day for 30 or 40 dollars. But it's in otherwise good condition and not a terrible image.

...and it looks pretty well faded from exposure to light.

Cheers,
Stan

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