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Hello All,

I recently obtained an album of almost 100 Japanese woodblock fan prints without a publishing date, but almost certainly late Meiji (my guess is 1895-1915). I (with help - thank you I. Nagy) have identified fans from some very well known (and not so well known) artists including:

Kamisaka Sekka
Suzuki Shonen
Okoku Konoshima
Tomioka Tessai
Imao Keinen
Yoshitsugu Haisan
Takeuchi Seiho
Kumagai Naohiko (maybe)
Kikuchi Keigetsu
Uemura Shoen
Kono Bairei
Ogata Gekko
Matsumura Keibun
Kawabata Gyokusho
Ogata Korin
Kano Tsunenobu
Konobu Hasegawa
Hamaya Hakuu
Tomioka Tessai
Fukuda Chojuko
Yamaguchi Sohei
Yamamoto Shunkyo
Baisen Hirai
Otake Chikuha

So, except for some famous historical painters, all late Meiji artists, almost all of which seem to have Kyoto connections. The difficulty is that there are still prints which have not yet been identified, and some of them have numerous examples in the fan book. I am posting two more examples that appear several times in the album, but that I have been unable to identify. Representatives from the two artists are posted here with enlarged signature blocks. Any identification by the Asian Art Forum community would be greatly appreciated.

J. Boussinesq

The first two characters of the signature are 松山. I'm sure the redoubtable I. Nagy will decipher the last character.

I'm not so sure this is a print. The edges of the leaves suggest to me that this might be a painting. What do other's think?

Thank you for the reading. I am certain it is a print as (1) It has woodblock bleed-through, is not on watercolor paper with no brush strokes; (2) It is in a large numbered print book with a few other prints that I have seen at other locations. It would have been nice, but unfortunately not hand-painted.

For the characters, after a bit of searching around for the 松山 (Matsuyama or Shozan?) character set on other works, the closest I have found is in the link shown, signed 松山水 which at a (big) stretch could be the signature on the print. But the link doesn't shown any information on the artist.

There is also an artist with the same characters, Fujii Matsuyama (藤井松山) who is exactly the right age, but signs very differently. Maybe I. Nagy has better ideas?

URL Title :Scroll with a signature maybe like the fan print?

Reading of signature and seal,
松嶺　-　Shōrei
is the reading, but for the time being I cannot find　applicable artist with this name.

With regards,
I.Nagy

Thanks again for the help in reading. I will look around with this and see what can be found. It seems there are so many artists who are not so well documented.

J. Boussinesq

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