About This Print

One of 118 prints in the series Dai Nippon Bussan Zue (Products of Greater Japan), issued in August 1877 to coincide with the opening of Japan’s first National Industrial Exposition (Naikoku Kangyō Hakurankai) held in Tokyo’s Ueno Park. It depicts the capturing of a "crane hawk" using a tame crane hawk and a bird on a lure in Iyo Province.  The title of this print, shown in the left-most red part of the scroll, does not give the location, but the scroll tells us that it is 伊豫, Iyo, which is now part of Ehime Prefecture on Shikoku in Sourtheast Japan.  The small yellow cartouche (see Miscellaneous in Print Details below) informs us that the bird resting on the falconer's gloved hand is tame.According to the website Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive the distribution of the "crane hawk" (Geranospiza caerulescens) is is limited to South and Central America, making it likely that some other raptor is pictured and described in the print.