Prime Minister Hana Karuta by Oishi Tengudo
“A replica of an original deck dating back to the Meiji era (1864-1912), that one century earlier had been commissioned to the same manufacturer by Itô Hirofumi (1841-1909), the first Japanese prime minister. He was a lover of figurative art of his own country, and had a particular interest for the typical flower card illustrations. During the 19th century, despite some graphic details were still partly subject to changes, the design of the local cards had gradually reached a certain stability, and its basic elements had become a standard: a crane on the first card of Pine, a nightingale on the same card of Plum, the curtain on Cherry, and so on, including the ones with red and blue ribbons. The edition that Hirofumi had made by Ôishi could be described today as "luxury". The maker kept one copy for himself, and from this specimen, in 1991, a faithful replica was obtained, also called Sôridaijin no Hana-karuta ("prime minister's flower cards"), in honour of the important client.”
Forgive the quality of my pictures, but I was unable to kidnap HSBC to do a proper job - these are very nice cards…
This deck is larger than the standard hanafuda deck - standard card shown in lower left for comparison
Brights on the top row, 10s on the second, banners the third, then the dregs…
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Some closeups…
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