Japanese Art Signatures: A Handbook and Practical Guide

Designed for both layman and scholar, its simplified approach allows users to find and identify over 11,000 names of Japanese artists and craftspeople, from all periods and in all media. Includes a sections on reading dates, a list of 300 modified and debased characters, and an index of provinces and place names, plus reproductions of date and censor seals on woodblock prints, publishers' trademarks and seals, and actors' and Genji mon. Indispensable for the scholar or collector of Japanese art. In English and Japanese.

James Self has been involved with Japanese art for many years, both as a collector of swords and as a director and consultant to one of Britain's largest companies specializing in the valuation of antiques.