The collector generally passes by all designs in which clumsiness or awkwardness is evident, and waits patiently for those in which the force, or grace, or dignity of the composition proclaims the masterpiece. Kiyonaga's "Terrace by the Sea," Sharaku's portrait of the Daimyo Moronao, Hokusai's "Red Mountain," and Utamaro's "Firefly Catchers" are examples of that unsurpassable quality which no experienced collector willingly lets escape him. THE QUALITY OF THE IMPRESSION.--Different copies of the same print differ enormously in quality. The finest design is of little avail if the work of the printer has not been judicious. Among early prints, before Utamaro, really bad impressions are not very common, although especially fine and brilliant ones are hard to obtain. Later, particularly in the work of Hiroshige, the poor ones much outnumber the good. In a good impression the lines are all sharp and clean: where the hair meets the temples, every brush-stroke is clearly defined. The blacks are rich and heavy, not sooty or streaked. The colours must be in perfect register; that is, each must exactly fill its allotted space without overlapping and without ragged edges. Prints in which these defects occur are either careless impressions or late impressions from worn blocks. Whichever be the explanation, they are not desirable; the discriminating collector does not care to acquire any but perfectly printed sheets. All the skill and devotion of the printer was needed to make the resulting product a just interpretation of the conception of the designer; in a bad impression the beauty of the design is ruined. Prior to the nineteenth century it was the usual practice to give each colour-block a uniform coat of pigment; thus each separate colour impressed on the paper was completely flat and unshaded. In Hiroshige's time, however, the pigment was often partially wiped from portions of the block, so that in the resulting print the colour shades gradually into the uncoloured white of the paper. Many of Hiroshige's prints derive a considerable portion of their beauty from the subtlety of these gradations. There are no such things as signed artist's proofs among Japanese prints; but there is a class of prints that corresponds to them. They are not labelled; nothing distinguishes them from the ordinary copies except the extreme beauty of the printing. These rare impressions were probably early ones made under the eye of the artist. The sharpness of the lines, the harmony of the colours, and the delicacy of gradation in any shaded portions are of a perfection lacking in the ordinary copies. It took much care and time, and was therefore expensive, to produce such work; and probably the majority of purchasers were unwilling to pay the additional price entailed by this degree of attention. The few existing copies of this character are exceptionally prized by the collector to-day.