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I would be very grateful for any help with the signature on this (I think) woodblock print. Thank you.

The artist who designed your print was Kawarazaki Shodo. Your print is afflicted with a fungus/mold infection called "foxing". It's a contagious condition. Therefore your print should be quarantined and isolated from other prints.

The seal possibly is that of a publishing house. On the presumption that the woodblock print is Japanese, the seal would be transcribed in English as Masamitsudo (Hall of Masamitsu - 將光堂).

Masamitsu appears to be a fairly common name in Japan. Perhaps with a bit of patience you can track down the name or its characters to the source of your print.

Best regards,

Bill H.

Though I often find myself sowing confusion in these spaces when trying to pitch in with matters Japanese, the kanji for the artist Kawarazaki Shodo ((1889-1973) appears to be 河原崎奨堂, which only has the last character in common with the red seal (將光堂) seen on this print. While I can't verify whether there are alternate transliterations to the name Masamitsudo, it was the only one that came back from a query of the seal's kanji to JDIC, the principal Japanese-English Dictionary affiliated with Unicode. I note that most entries I pulled up with this seal refer to it only as "the artists seal" without separate transliteration. Maybe others can sort out whether this might be another name for the artist.

Best regards,

Bill H.

Hi Bill H.,

Japanese seals, with their stylized character renderings are notoriously tricky for us Westerners to unravel.

As I read the Shodo seal, I see 2 kanji characters where you are seeing 3. I'm thinking that what you are reading as 將光 is a calligraphically stylized rendering of 奨.

The sho character is #1181 in Nelson's Japanese-English character dictionary. There are 2 different kanjis shown for that character. If you examine the one on the right, I think you may come to agree with my interpretation of the seal characters. If you don't have access to Nelson's dictionary, send me an email ([email protected]) and I will be glad to scan that page and send you the scan.

Hi Mark,

You're indeed my salvation. I tried to skate by without checking my presumption with the etymology website. Perhaps next time I will hole-up Daruma-like in a cave somewhere and meditate longer on the meaning of life and kanji, but please hang around in case it slips my mind again.

Thanks a million,

Bill H.

Marc, I'm adding this only to prove I can spell your name right if I try hard.
Bill H.

Hi, Thanks for all the info. A quick search of Google images shows that the print is by Kawarazaki Shodo. I'm delighted with the fantastic response.

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