Act VII (Shichidanme), from the series The Storehouse of Loyal Retainers, a Primer (Kanadehon Chûshingura)

The characters on this woodblock indicate that Hokusai designed the print. The scene depicts an execution from the play Chushingura, the name for fictionalized accounts of the historical revenge by the Forty-seven Ronin (masterless samurai) for the death of their master, Asano Naganori. This famous loyalty-revenge story is based on true incidents which took place between 1701 and 1703, however to avoid shogunate censorship, the authors set the play in the earlier Muromachi period (1333-1573) and the names of the characters were altered.

The art of woodblock color printing reached its peak and flourished during the Edo period. Creation of a woodblock print begins with the artist producing a master drawing in ink. An assistant (hikko) would then create a tracing (hanshita) of the master’s drawing. Next the hanshita was pasted face down on a dried block of cherry wood, which was then carefully carved so that the lines of the drawing were left in relief. This left the drawing in reverse on the block, but destroyed the hanshita. The block was then inked and printed, making near-exact copies of the original drawing. A first test copy (kyogo-zuri) would be given to the artist for a final check. The prints were in turn glued face-down, to wood blocks and those areas of the design which were to be printed in a particular color were left in relief. Each of these blocks printed at least one color in the final design. The resulting set of woodblocks were inked in different colors and sequentially impressed onto paper.  To ensure accurate registration of each color in the print, a guide mark (kento) was carved in relief on each of the blocks in the lower right hand corner. The final print bore the impressions of each of the blocks some of which were printed more than once to obtain just the right depth of color. A fine edition of 200 – 300 would take approximately two weeks to produce. After the first printing, the blocks would start to show signs of wear, beginning with the finer lines and the color would become progressively less vivid due to water saturation.