Untitled

This untitled print of 1804 held by the Victoria and Albert Museum is recorded under Kitao Masayoshi's attribution without further identifying title. Such untitled or incompletely titled holdings are common in museum collections of Edo printed material, where original wrappers, title slips, or contextualizing matter have sometimes been lost in the centuries of handling, rebinding, and recirculation that the books have experienced. The 1804 date places the work in the middle of Masayoshi's mature period, during which he was producing illustrated books, sketch albums, and topographic illustrations under the Tsuyama clan patronage that he had received in 1797. By this point his characteristic abbreviated sketch style was fully developed and circulating widely through the various ryakugashiki publications and related sketch albums. The Victoria and Albert Museum's holding of this untitled work contributes one more impression to the British museum-side record of Masayoshi's output, and points to the broader fact that even today the bibliographic and catalog identification of Edo printed material remains an ongoing scholarly project. Researchers interested in his identified works can consult the museum's holdings of titled books such as Tokaido meisho zue and Ehon Edo zakura.