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Original Number

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25

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ADDITIONAL NOTES FOR THIS DESIGN

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Currently Documented Edition Signature and Seal Markings:

Edition I:	楽山居	Raku-zan Kyo	+ Seal A
Edition III:	楽山篁子生	Raku-zan Kou-shi-sei	+ Seal B

[For illustration of seals listed by seal code letter, see the Seals article. For edition characteristics applicable to this series as a whole, see the Edition article.]

Design History:
This woodblock print was produced from an original painting on silk dating from the late 1920s whose current location is unknown. The indentification of this design as number 25 is original to Rakusan who published the print as the 25th design in his series of one hundred woodblock prints called 楽山花鳥畫譜, Rakuzan Kachou Gafu, lit. 'Rakusan's Flower and Bird Print Series'.

25alt, a woodblock print of an alternate sketch of the same design subject was issued the month before the initial printing of 25 as a preview advertisement.

Edition I: The first print run of about two hundred copies of 25 was completed and the design published in May 1930 in installment thirteen (of fifty). (The exact printing and publication days are unknown since no copies of the installment thirteen delivery documents have yet been located.) One additional full print run of 25 might have been produced before mid 1933 when the series was completed and edition I printings ceased. Almost all currently documented copies of 25 come from edition I printings, including the different examples at top and below left.

Rakusan considered 25 to be one of his best designs and included it in at least three formal presentation albums between 1935 and 1940.

Currently, no edition II reprintings of 25 are known, and it is almost certain that none were made. Not only were good quality edition I copies of 25 available through 1940, but copies with city-name stamps show that supplies of edition I of 25 were still for sale at least as late as 1947.

Edition III: Sometime between 1948 and 1955, Rakusan reprinted 25 in a single, smaller edition III print run from which only a very few copies are known. All of the documented copies, including the example at below right, have secondary cursive Rakusan romaji signatures, indicating that they were intended to be sold through Walter Foster.

25 (edition I)	25 (edition III)

All three of these illustrated examples of 25 were imaged under different lighting conditions, and the difficult-to-photograph warm tan backgrounds are actually more similar than they appear here. However, the differences between the other colors, including the greens, are apparently as shown.

Copies in Public Collections:
Edition I: Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, Wisconsin, USA; (1968.1.575) [illustrated online]

Edition I: Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA; [accession number unknown, illustrated only in an online article].

Species Illustrated:
Red Garden Pea, Pisum sativum var., 赤豌豆, あかえんどう, アカエンドウ, aka-endou, lit. 'red pea', is an originally exotic legume which was an early import into Japan. It is grown both for its flowers and agriculturally. Here the bamboo stake support indicates that the pea is growing in a garden setting.

Oriental (Gray-capped) Greenfinch, Carduelis sinica, 河原鶸, 川原鶸, かわらひわ, カワラヒワ, kawara-hiwa, lit. 'riverbed-siskin/finch', is a common Japanese songbird. In 25 Rakusan shows two birds, presumably indicating a mated pair; but the sexes are similar in appearance, and it could be any two birds here.