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Hello List Members..

I am seeking help in identifying the time frame of the two pages taken out of a book and joined together to form a landscape picture.

Under magnification the images look as if they are coloured woodblocks prints. The calligraphy shows two styles, a partial translation would be most appreciated.

Thanks you
Andrew

These are poems, their text in cursive and identifying numbering (from a well-known anthology?) above in standard script, and the work's title? below in standard script. Japan folks might add more specifics. Meiji period? Taisho?

Any chance it is the same set of poems included in the series '100 Poems by 100 Poets' that were done as a series in the Edo period by multiple artists? Below are two examples; the first by Kuniyoshi, the second by Hiroshige.

Cheers,
Stan

Rat & Stan, thank you both for your valued replies, it was much appreciated.

I have a further one of these 'poems' which I have scanned both sides which may throw more light on their originality?

The last text you posted seems to be a praise to the Tang Emperor Taizong: “太宗在唐為一代英明之君，其濟世康民，偉有成烈，卓乎不可及已。所可惜者，正心修身，有愧于二帝三王之道，而治未純也。”

the second sheet of illustrated poems doesn't add anything that I can tell; the block-printed text is two pages (one upside down) of a Japanese version of a Chinese text that was probably published around the same time as the illustrated poems (though the Chinese text itself (not the printed page you have on hand) is dated to the first year of the Chenghua reign (1464)). If so, the fact that it is annotated with katakana suggests as I guessed above that the illustrated sheets of poems predate WW2. Perhaps there are other clues that others can pick up on.

Thank you Mina & Rat for sharing your knowledge on the illustrated sheets.

I very much appreciate your replies as I am sure all forum members do... thank you.

Andrew

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