Asianart.com | Associations | Articles | Exhibitions | Galleries

Could use a little help with finalizing my reading of this Japanese seal. So far I've identified most characters, but still not sure about one. There are a few little strokes below "將" [jiang]. Any idea what those strokes are?

Currently I'm reading this seal as: "將堅印"

Could it be "獎" (price), or "漿" (paste)?

Thank you for any help.

Y.E.,

I agree with you reading of the characters but are you sure this is Japanese? Only if the seal is read from the R to the L as usual, you get a name that makes (some) sense in Japanese: 'Kensho' or 'Kenso'. The apparent extension in seal script of the 將 character remains unclear to me also.

Could you post an image of the totality?

Guy.

The two lines is a convention to act as a 'ditto' mark. This then repeats the character above.

Mike,

Thanks for this moment of illumination :)

So, if Japanese, we could get following reading:
堅將二印
'Kenshosho in' (Kenshosho's seal)

Guy.

Dear Guy, mikeoz:

Thank you both for your comments. The scroll is too long to fit in, so I hope you don't mind me showing just the important area.

The format for the scroll has a standard Chinese layout, but the main text is in Japanese. I'm assuming the calligrapher was Japanese (Guy: as you pointed about making sense of a seal, I think the first red seal can be read from L to R).

My main interest is finding out what the 2nd red seal is. From your comments, I'm starting to wonder if that particular seal was a collector's seal (a Chinese collector for instance).

mikeoz: (With the ditto mark, any idea what part of the right radical should I repeat?)

Finally, please also take into consideration that I may date this scroll between late 19th to early 20th century, Japan. I welcome any corrections.

Correction:

I'm reading the first seal, column-wise, from R to L.

The second seal, L to R.

What's your reading of the first seal?

guy

So far, my reading on the first seal is:

信齋書記, Xin Zhai Shu Ji.

The last character "記" (ji), as in "record, or to record".

I think there is a name "信齋", and will check that later on.

Please confirm my reading. Thank you.

I read the seal as 'Nobusai shoki'. The compound 書記 (shoki) means 'secretary' or 'clerk'.

Guy

Thank you for taking the time to review the characters.

In case anyone is wondering, this original calligraphy is about Kobayashi Issa's work and encouragement, about agriculture "勧農の詞".

So far, I've located two other scrolls with similar text, but brushed by different calligraphers.

小林一茶, Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828)

URL Title :Encouragement about Farming (Japanese)

Asianart.com | Associations | Articles | Exhibitions | Galleries |