Colophons are known variously in Japanese as daibatsu, batsu, batsubun, batsugo, shogo, and kôjo. These are texts appended to the ends of scrolls or albums of paintings and calligraphy which comment on the production process of the scroll and its provenance. They also record the occasions on which the scroll was viewed. In China, the use of such colophons flourished in the Song and later dynasties. Japanese literati artists also emulated Ming and Qing dynasty paintings by appending colophons. These are either self-inscribed colophons by the artist of the work, or, more commonly, colophons by a third party provided at the request of the commissioner of the work or its owner. Commissioners of works and owners of works would also add their own colophons. A colophon written by a famous person also became an object of appreciation in its own right. Each colophon appended to a work further affirmed and assured the valuation of the work, and it is apparent that the value of the work grew through this process. If numerous colophons exist, they also clarify the relationships between the artist, commissioner, owner, and colophon authors, the provenance path of the work, and as such, also increase a work's value as reference material for research.
      This paper will take one painting handscroll as an example. It will consider what the intentions of the commissioner were in commissioning the work, and will consider the significance of the commissioner's requests to famous individuals to write colophons on the work.
      Yabakei Gorge is a narrow gorge carved by the Yamakunigawa River in the lava formed mountains of northwestern Oita Prefecture. This site is famous for its scenery and was the first nationally designated park in Japan (today part of the Yaba-Hita-Hikosan Quasi-National Park). The Yabakei scenery is rich in unusual rock formations and strange peaks which themselves can be called almost "literati" in flavor. Rai Sanyô (1781-1832) and many other of the literati artists of the Edo period enjoyed painting its scenery. The Yabakei Gorge Handscroll, today in the Tokyo National Museum, was painted by the Nagasaki literati painter Kinoshita Itsuun (1800-1866) in Ansei 2 (1855), and was commissioned by the Echigo loyalist Oyanagi Shuntei (? - 1880). The Saga Nabeshima clan Confucian scholar and painter Kusaba Haisen wrote the title characters and preface for the work. A total of nine individuals — including the Bungo Hita Confucian Hirose Tansô, and his son Hirose Kyokusô, the Ise Tsu Confucian Saitô Setsudô, the Kii Arida Confucian Kikuchi Keikin, the Edo Confucian Fujimori Kôan, and other painter-priests and kanshi style poets — added colophons to the work by Ansei 6 (1859). A letter from Itsuun addressed to Shuntei — which entered the Tokyo National Museum collection from a different provenance route than that of the painting — records the process by which this painting was produced. References to Shuntei can also be found in the diaries of the Confucians involved in the work, and from these records we know that Shuntei directly visited each of the Confucians and requested colophons for the work from them. Indeed, we can call this a process by which the value of the work was increased through its movement through time and place.
      Of deep interest is the fact that five of the nine colophon writers and the title inscriber Haisen are thought to have never actually seen the painting by Itsuun. Originally colophons were inscribed on a work after their inscriber had viewed and appreciated the painting, but it seems from the limitations imposed by the dates of Shuntei's presence, that this normal procedure was not followed. Indeed, this conveys Shuntei's specific intent to have produced a painting handscroll accompanied by a title preface and colophons written by famous people. We can consider that the Japanese aficionados of all things Chinese during that period, including Shuntei, believed that such a painting-colophon handscroll format was the ideal painting format.