Posted by Noel Chiappa (98.166.150.196) on February 02, 2011 at 20:00:06:
In Reply to: Re: Nobukazu Triptych II posted by Daniel on February 02, 2011 at 09:46:11:
"If his year of death is confirmed ... as 1944, Shôwa 23 (1948) would also be quite ... impossible."
Even without the 'external' factors (such as his death, and the overall look of the print), I am increasingly coming to believe, just looking at the characters of the date, that the date has to read 'Meiji'.
If you look at the right-hand radical of the second character of Meiji (治), and that of Shōwa (和) you can see that although both have a box, for the Meiji character it is on the bottom of the right-hand side, and there are other strokes above it. However, for the right-hand radical of the second Shōwa character, it is just a plain box. Now look again at the second character in the date on your print (at the top of the right-hand column): there is clearly more than just a box, there are other strokes above. So I think it has to read 'Meiji'.
Noel