Preparatory drawings for Flowers of a Hundred Worlds (Momoyogusa): God of Thunder (Raijin)

The Cleveland Museum of Art's group of preparatory drawings for Momoyogusa (1989.85, donated 1989) preserves a sequence of Sekka's freehand studies — including God of Thunder (Raijin), Flower-draped Carts, Dancing, Puppies, Oxherd, Late Spring, Chrysanthemum Boy, and Shibaraku — drawn in ink and colour on tracing paper at approximately 27 × 39 cm. The drawings document the preparatory stage of Sekka's design process for the Momoyogusa plates published by Yamada Unsōdō in 1909-10, and the museum notes that they are 'much looser than the finished, printed compositions' — exactly the relationship between freehand study and final block design that the late-Meiji Kyoto colour woodblock workshop required. Taken together with Cleveland's complete three-volume printed set (1988.23), the preparatory drawings give the most thorough single record of how a Momoyogusa plate moved from Sekka's design table through the Kyoto block-cutters and printers to the bound orihon album. The group is among the most important holdings of Sekka working material outside Japan and a primary document for the history of Japanese design publishing.