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Thew first two characters are same for Hiroshige I and II (but not the third character). The print looks nothing like their work. It seems very much like Koson (or possibly Shozan or Shotei). Can anyone read the entire signature? Any suggestions?

Jim,

The signature reads "Hiroshige hitsu" or "from the brush of Hiroshige". But, it's not true. In the 1920s-1930s, many Western tourists came to Japan with the idea that they wanted to come home with a Hiroshige print. Western demand had already depleted original Hiroshige prints and they were not available. However, there were plenty of enterprising print publishers/salespeople who were willing to produce prints, the designs of which were knockoffs of other designs and which had Hiroshige's signature. These prints were sold to unsuspecting Westerners as "Hiroshige prints". That's what you've got... a knockoff tourist print.

The theme of swallows and willow is a recurring one in Japanese art. It looks to me that your print is a knockoff of an original design by Sozan (as you suspected) and/or another design by Daiko. If you do Google searches for 'swallows willow "japanese print" sozan' and 'swallows willow "japanese print" daiko', the search results will lead you to pictures of the sources of your knockoff.

Marc

Thanks, Mark. I paid literally almost nothing for it, so it's not a loss. I knew it wasn't Hiroshige. It will remain unframed, though it's not bad looking.

I can't help much. The third character looks like fude (with brush). The print doesn't look like it was printed with woodblocks but a more modern printing method.

Cheers,
Stan

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