Chats on Japanese Prints

by Arthur Davison Ficke

These figures need not terrify the beginner whose means are limited. Specimens of great beauty may still be brought together with a small expenditure of money, if accompanied by a large expenditure of taste and judgment. For example, the book-sheets of Harunobu called "Serio Bijin Awase," the sheets of Shunsho's "Ise Monogatari," the later upright prints of Hiroshige, the pillar-prints of Koriusai—all of them works of admirable quality—may sometimes be obtained with only a small outlay. Their intrinsic proportionate worth, and the certainty of their advancing in value, are almost as great as in the case of those rarer treasures of Masanobu, Kiyonaga, and Sharaku which have been largely pre-empted by the great collections, and which are now almost prohibitive in price.

Yet it would not be a kindness to hold out to the novice the hope that, with the expenditure of a few shillings, he can form an important collection. Such a hope is a mistaken one. Great discretion is necessary to obtain at a moderate price prints worth having at all. The cheap prints are generally either the late and crude ones, or the badly damaged ones. Both of these classes lack the one raison d'être of collecting—beauty. It is true that, as I have said, a really fine Hiroshige may still sometimes be picked up for a song, but such opportunities are rare; they must be waited for a long time, and must be seized with instant determination when they come. The collector who is not well informed is more than likely to find, after a short period of triumph over his bargain, that his copy is a late and poor impression, and that even the beauty of composition will not permanently satisfy him in the absence of fine and appropriate printing. In this connection it should be remembered that while the finest prints are generally more valuable than their cost, the second-rate prints are generally worth nothing whatsoever.

If one has adequate experience, one can well hunt for these opportunities of which I speak. Or if one is unable to pay the normal prices for fine works, one is obliged to lie in wait for them. The average collector will, however, find that in the course of years he gains more by paying normal prices to high-class dealers for the best prints than by seeking in the byways for dubious bargains of speculative quality.

It is true that the prices set upon the finest prints are at present high. Recent years have seen an enormous advance in values. For example, I have known £300 to be asked for a copy of the "Monkey Bridge"; £60 for a superb copy of the Kiso Snow Mountains Triptych; and several other prints by Hiroshige have changed hands at £60 apiece. These prices of course applied only to remarkably, and perhaps uniquely, fine copies. In the last edition of his volume, "Japan and its Arts," Mr. Marcus B. Huish remarks that prints have "risen to extravagant prices—prices sober-minded people consider altogether beyond their worth." This is a matter of individual opinion. A good Hiroshige at £5, or a Kiyonaga at £20 will seem to many people less extravagant than a "proof" mezzotint by Smith from Reynold's "Mrs. Carnac" at seven hundred guineas, or Rembrandt's etching of "Jan Six" at £3,000. In fairness to Mr. Huish, however, we must continue the quotation. "But these prices," he says, "have been paid by the Directors of Museums and other astute persons who do not expend the limited means at their disposal unless they feel well assured that they (the prints) will in the future be either unobtainable or at enhanced prices." This is quite true. There is no indication that the values of Japanese prints will ever be lower than they are to-day; on the contrary, they have been rising swiftly and steadily for twenty years, and great advances in value may be expected. To these advances many forces are already contributing. Every year a certain number of prints are accidentally destroyed, decreasing the total available supply. No further supplies of large numbers can be expected from Japan, which has been ransacked with all the thoroughness of skilled searchers armed with the lure of high prices. In fact, prices in Japan to-day are probably higher than prices in London; at least, higher prices are asked for inferior prints. The finest prints bring about the same price everywhere. Each year the great museums of the world acquire by purchase or bequest prints which are thus forever removed from the market. Each year the number of persons who appreciate prints is growing; and there is a continual increase in the number of wealthy collectors who can and will pay almost any price to obtain what they desire. One may be prepared to look back, in twenty years, with mingled amazement and regret as he contemplates what will then seem the absurdly low prices asked for the greatest treasures to-day.

Therefore, without serious doubt, the prudent collector will not suffer because of his present acquisitions. It should, however, always be borne in mind that the very finest prints—those which seem most expensive to-day—are the ones that will rise most rapidly in value as time passes. Poor impressions, soiled copies, and second-rate compositions will never be very rare; but the supremely fine sheets—scarce enough now—will grow scarcer with every year.

Nevertheless, collecting as an investment is not advocated. If the collector is not moved by the delight he gets from the æsthetic qualities of the prints, he had far better leave them entirely alone. Nothing but the passion of real enthusiasm and perception will enable him to select the best works; and without this selection his prints are not likely to be of much ultimate value. When, however, the collector makes his acquisitions out of pure love for their beauty, it is right and prudent that he should consider their value in later years. Such a collector need have no fear; what was to him a delight and a dissipation will probably in the end prove to his heirs an investment of profit.

Forgeries.

The collector must be constantly on his guard against reprints, forgeries, and reproductions. These are not as common as some writers believe; but they exist.

Reprints are impressions made at a time so long after the original edition that they have not the original colouring. The register of such prints is generally faulty, and the lines are not sharp. So long as the blocks are in existence these reprints are possible. Early reprints are merely late editions of the originals, and are not objectionable if the blocks have not become worn; but late ones are undesirable. A print made to-day from the original blocks of Harunobu, did they exist, would have no value.

Forgeries are works produced in the style and over the signature of some famous artist. Since they have no prototype among the artist's real works, they present difficulties of their own; there is no genuine copy of the same print with which to compare them. They are very rare; their chief occurrence is in the cases of Harunobu and Utamaro.