Nishimura Yohachi

Nishimuraya Yohachi (dates unknown)^[1] was one of the leading publishers of woodblock prints in late 18th-century Japan.^[2] He founded the Nishimuraya Yohachi publishing house, also known as Nishiyo (西与),^[3] which operated in Nihonbashi's Bakurochō Nichōme under the shop name Eijudō. The firm's exact dates are unclear, but many art historians date its activity to between c. 1751 and 1860.^[4][5]

According to Andreas Marks, Nishimuraya is "one of the most important publishers in the history of prints and may be the publisher with the biggest output over time," attributing his success to "engaging the best artists and providing a broad range of prints to satisfy the public's interest."

He is known to have been a member of the Fuji-kō, an Edo period cult centred around

Shintō sects.^[15]

The publisher's association with the Fuji-kō gives clues not only to imagery in his portrait by Utagawa, but also to his eagerness to participate in the production of Hokusai's various works celebrating Mount Fuji.

See also

• Ukiyo-e
• Edo period

References

1. ^ "Mr. Edmonds, the cataloguer at Sotheby’s before the Second World War, seems to have been the first to suggest, in a catalogue of 1912, that Eijudō was born in 1729 and would therefore be seventy-one by Japanese reckoning, in 1799. 1799 is a plausible date for the print, but Edmunds cited no source for his information about the year of Eijudō's birth, and no recent Japanese scholar has proposed a date." (Museum Angewandte Kunst)
2. ^ Newland 2003, 475
3. ^ Newland 2003, 175
4. ^ Pushkin State Museum; Japanese Prints
5. ^ Newland is less precise, describing Nishimuraya as active from the "mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century (2003, 475); Machotka chooses the period c. 1789–1830 (2009, 64), and Volker insists on 1738-1818 (1949, 20).
6. ^ Marks
7. ^ Newland 2003, 206
8. ^ Hillier & Smith
9. ^ Japanese Prints
10. Freer Gallery
    .
11. ^ Honolulu Museum
12. ^ Melton 2008, 231
13. ^ Yamaguchi
14. ^ Yamaguchi
15. ^ Melton 2008, 231

Sources

• Hillier, Jack; Smith, Lawrence (1980). Japanese Prints: 300 Years of Albums and Books. British Museum Press.
  ISBN 978-0714114187
  .
• Machotka, Ewa. Visual Genesis of Japanese National Identity: Hokusai's Hyakunin Isshu. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2009.
• Marks, Andreas. Japanese Woodblock Prints: Artists, Publishers and Masterworks 1680-1900. Tokyo: Tuttle, 2010.
• Melton, J. Gordon. Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena. Canton, MI: Visible Ink Press, 2008
• Newland, Amy Reigle. Ed. Hotei Encyclopedia of Woodblock Prints, vol. 2., 2003.
• Volker, T. Ukiyoe Quartet: publisher, designer, engraver and printer. Mededelingen van het Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Issue 5, Volume 129. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1949.
• Japanese Prints. Nishimuraya Yohachi. Cowell-Thackray Collection of Japanese woodblock prints and works on paper. Accessed October 27, 2013.
• Honolulu Museum of Art. Portrait of Publisher Nishimuraya Yohachi I on His Seventy-first Birthday. Accessed October 28, 2013.