Abstract
The design of shelves occupies a very important position in the interior decoration of Japanese traditional houses. Many of these designs are introduced in the architectural manuals known as "Tana-hinagata" published about the beginning of the Edo period (beginning of the XVII century). In this paper I analyzed four of these architectural manuals which I classified under the "germination stage" (lit. Hoga-ki) and the "formation stage" (lit. Seiritsu-ki). Through the analysis of these manuals I inferred the existence of a lost original from which the woodblock prints for the "Tana-hinagata" were derived.
