Featured Woodblock print collection questions...

Thank you @verybrad! I need to spend more time with these for sure. I tucked them away for now. I'm sorting through a whole storage locker of stuff. Lots to investigate.

So, artisans would use old blocks (Hiroshiges, for example) and continue making big prints after the artists death? I see that Hiroshige died in 1858.

 

They would carve new blocks once the old ones wore out as a tribute of sorts to the artist. It was also a money making endeavor. Publishers were filling a demand. The practice continues to this day.

 

Digitized Library of Commerce collection of woodblock prints for research

https://www.loc.gov/collections/japanese-fine-prints-pre-1915/about-this-collection/