The mausoleum at Shiba, published by Watanabe, 1930

This second impression of the Shiba mausoleum subject likely reflects an alternate state, a color trial, or a related design within the same group. Watanabe Shozaburo's workshop frequently produced multiple issues of a successful design over time, with adjustments to color choices, registration, or paper stock. Variant impressions provide useful evidence of how shin-hanga publishing differed from sosaku-hanga: whereas the latter treated each impression as a unique artistic statement, the Watanabe model produced ongoing editions to meet collector demand both in Japan and among American and European buyers. Oda's mausoleum subject sits within a broader 1930s genre of architectural prints by figures including Hasui and Yoshida that documented historic Japanese sites, in some cases anticipating — or, in the Shiba complex's case, preceding by a decade and a half — their loss to fire, earthquake, or wartime destruction. Compositional treatment of architectural detail in mokuhanga of this period typically used reserved areas of toned paper to suggest weathering on lacquered wood, with bokashi handling sky and shadow.