Author: Hikifuda.
Title: [Tsuchiya Rikujiro].
Description: Osaka 1907 (Meiji 40). 26x38cm colour lithograph. A nice copy. ¶ You'd think this smug gang of dandies - the seven lucky gods - would be advertising fashion but they are peddling some sort of pharmaceuticals made by Tsuchiya Rikujiro out of Tsukobo in the Okayama area. The drug trade is treating them well.Hikifuda - small posters or handbills often handed out as seasonal gifts - were usually produced with the text panel blank. The customer, usually a retailer, had their own details over printed, so the same image might sell fine silk or soy sauce.

Keywords: graphic commercial art advertising c20th Japan hikifuda trade catalogues modernism printing meiji drugs