Posted by Noel Chiappa (98.166.150.196) on September 01, 2010 at 05:31:01:
In Reply to: Re: Who is the artist? Is this a sur posted by Horst Graebner on August 31, 2010 at 18:18:47:
"the title of the book is 'Edo daisetsuyo kaidaigura' (no idea what it means)"
The meaning of 'Edo Daisetsuyo Kaidaigura' (江戸 大節用 海内蔵) does seem to be rather obscure!
My dictionaries don't give the entire compound 'daisetsuyo', but for 'setsuyo' they give 'frugality' (or 'economization') , so the whole thing must be something like 'most frugal', or something like that. Similarly, they don't give the entire compound 'kaidaigura', but for 'kaidai' they give 'the whole country' (for an island country), so the whole thing must be something like 'the storehouse of the entire country' or ''warehouse of the entire country' or something like that.
So one possible meaning is something like 'Edo, the most frugal warehouse of the whole country' - also I concede that doesn't make a great deal of sense, on the face of it!
Noel