Ibasen was founded by Kanzaemon Ibaya, a merchant from Hamamatsu who came to Edo with Ieyasu Tokugawa. At the time of its founding, the company was located in Nihonbashi, Edo, and mainly handled Japanese paper, paper products, and bamboo products for the shogunate.
In the late Edo period (1603-1868), the company began to deal in fans and became the publisher of popular painters such as Toyokuni Utagawa I, Kuniyoshi Utagawa, and Hiroshige Utagawa, and gained popularity by imprinting ukiyoe pictures on fans for sale.