Keinen kachōgafu, natsu no bu (Summer volume)

The Summer volume of the Keinen kachō gafu (natsu no bu) is held by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., as part of its substantial collection of pre-1915 Japanese woodblock-printed books, and made available through the Library's open-access digital program. Published in Kyoto in 1891 by Nishimura Sōzaemon, with woodblocks carved by Tanaka Jirokichi and color printing by Miki Jinzaburō and Tanaka Harubei, the album contains thirty-two plates of summer birds and flowering plants, several of them spread across double-page openings to accommodate the larger compositions Keinen developed for figures like flying herons or branching summer vines. Its motifs range from cool-water imagery (kingfishers and herons over irises and water lilies, mandarin ducks on streams) to the dense vegetation of midsummer (peonies, hydrangeas, lotus, summer grasses) and to small songbirds among morning glories, bottle gourds, and cherry leaves. Keinen's drawing reflects his Maruyama-Shijō training under Suzuki Hyakunen, with each bird closely observed from life and arranged against a seasonally specific plant motif, while the printing reflects Kyoto's status by the 1890s as a center of high-end Meiji book production capable of rivaling the finest Tokyo nishiki-e. The Library of Congress digitized copy (LCCN 2009615653) is one of the most freely accessible scans of the album and has supported research and teaching on Meiji-era natural-history printmaking since its release.