The One-Page Preface and Colophon from the illustrated book "Colors of the Triple Dawn (Saishiki mitsu no asa)"

The One-Page Preface and Colophon from the illustrated book Colors of the Triple Dawn (Saishiki mitsu no asa), dated 1787 in the Art Institute of Chicago, is a single sheet that captures the front-matter of one of Torii Kiyonaga's most refined ehon. The preface and colophon of an ehon were where the publisher, author and artist identified themselves and stated, often in elegant prose or verse, the album's theme—in this case the colours and rituals of the first three days of the new year. Kiyonaga's contribution to such pages was usually a compact figural design coexisting with calligraphy, requiring him to share the sheet with the text in a balanced layout. As a Torii school designer accustomed to advertising placards, he handled the integration of script and image with the same eye for legibility he brought to theatrical signboards. The print therefore serves as a useful index of the collaborative production of Edo books, in which artist, calligrapher, blockcutter and printer were all named participants. Saishiki mitsu no asa was one of the high-end colour-printed albums of the late 1780s, and its preface page is prized today as a record of that production at its most self-conscious. The Art Institute of Chicago preserves it as part of its substantial Kiyonaga collection. For collectors of Edo bijin-ga and ehon, preface and colophon pages are valued precisely because they bring together the visual and textual cultures of the period, with Kiyonaga's restrained imagery setting an appropriately stately tone for the album that follows.