On Friday, the first docent trained to give Darwin D. Martin House tours in Japanese completed her certification.

Within the next year, Atsuko Nishida-Mitchell should be able to show visitors six rare and historic Japanese prints that will be gracing the interior of the restored home.

The six prints, chosen or prescribed for the Martins by architect Frank Lloyd Wright, have been donated to the Martin House Restoration Corp. by grandchildren, great-grandchildren and other relatives of Darwin D. and Isabelle Martin, the restoration group announced Friday.

These six prints, including landscape and bird-themed prints, weren’t squirreled away in some dusty attics or large safe-deposit boxes. They were on display in the descendants’ homes.

So these recent gifts, while leaving empty spaces on some family members’ walls, are greatly appreciated by Martin House officials.

“It’s heartwarming,” said Mary F. Roberts, executive director of the Martin House Restoration Corp. “It’s fitting and appropriate that the Martin descendants believe the prints they have inherited from their parents and grandparents should be brought back to their grandparents’ home.”

It’s a sacrifice, but a willing sacrifice, by the family members, who come back frequently to visit the family home being restored on Jewett Parkway.

The six Japanese prints were donated by Darwin Martin “Jerry” Foster, a grandson of the Martins; Mark Armesto, a granddaughter’s husband; and Betsy Mudra, a great-granddaughter.

“The Martin family has set a wonderful example with these gifts,” said Martin House curator Eric Jackson-

Forsberg. “It shows a real respect and love for the house, and an understanding of how important these prints were to the interior that Wright envisioned.”

A significant portion of the interior restoration, designed to restore the home to its 1907 look, is expected to be completed by next July. Three months later, in October 2011, the National Trust for Historic Preservation will bring its National Preservation Conference to Buffalo.

Officials expect the prints to be installed in time for that conference.

“This house will have one of the most comprehensive arrays of Japanese art in any of the restored prairie houses,” Jackson- Forsberg said.

Frank Lloyd Wright was an avid collector of Asian art and began acquiring Japanese prints during his first visit to Japan, returning home in 1905 and prescribing them to many of his clients as decor for their homes.

Martin House officials sounded almost giddy about the Japanese prints and the possibility of attracting even more Japanese visitors, who now will be able to enjoy a tour in their own language.

“This is in response to Japanese visitors who are already coming,” Jackson-Forsberg said. “Wright has always been popular in Japan. He did the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. We already have Japanese visitors. Now I think we can attract more of them.”