p3
Hikifuda. 醤油塩炭 ... [Shoyu Shio Sumi ...] np [190-?]. Colour lithograph 25x37cm. Pretty good. Au$150
An almost average street scene in late Meiji Japan but: without the telegraph poles and power lines, bowler hats and cyclist it could be a street scene generations earlier.
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. This one, from a Nishinomiya (between Osaka and Kobe) dealer, indeed sells soy sauce, salt, sake and charcoal - tradition kept alive in the modern world.
Kimono design. 美ゆき [Miyuki]. Koizumi Gofkuten [190-?]. 37x25cm colour printed boards, ribbon tied (rubbing, edges with some wear); [2]pp & 30 colour lithographs. Some tissues creased and rumpled, signs of use but a perfectly acceptable copy. Au$450
A large and fairly deluxe chromolithographed pattern book of kimono designs. The current Kyoto Koizumi Co deals in kimono and fashion and trace their history back to the early 18th century. Presuming this is the same company they have come down in the world since the days of pattern books like this.
Catalogue - books. Aoki Suzando. 内外書籍 出版発兌目録 [Naigai Shoseki Shuppan Hatsuda Mokuroku] Aoki Suzando 1903 (Meiji 36). 11x16cm publisher's colour printed wrapper; 316pp. Natural browning of the paper, an old fold; a rather good copy. Au$65
Aoki Suzando was a busy and bigtime publisher of prints and bookseller with shops in Osaka and Tokyo from the late 1870s to the early 1920s. These are illustrated on the back wrapper.
I have no idea how many thousand books are in this catalogue of domestic and foreign books but it must be a pretty good indication of what was available in late Meiji Japan.
Izumi Kojiro. 和洋家具雛形 [Wayo Kagu Hinagata]. Tokyo, Seikado 1909 (Meiji 42). Two volumes 12x18cm, publisher's wrappers with title labels (marked & rubbed but solid); semi measured drawings throughout. Marks, splodges and signs of use but very decent. sold
First published in 1901. A nifty pattern book of Japanese and western furniture designs, clear enough that a decent carpenter/joiner could build straight from the book. There are several designs for display and shopfittings among the bureaus, tripod tables, screens and tansu.
Aspiration
Kimoto Motoo. 新案 明治婦人双六 [Shin'an Meiji Fujin Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Fujin Sekai 1910 (Meiji 43). Colour lithograph 51x79cm. A couple of pinholes in folds, rather good. Au$300
An aspirational record of the life of the modern Meiji woman. Women do work, as telephonists, as teachers, typesetters, maybe even as a doctor. All can be balanced with a satisfying family life. This was the new year gift from the magazine, Fujin Sekai: Woman's World.
Inspiration
Miyatake Gaikotsu. 奇想天来 [Kiso Tenrai]. Osaka, Gazokubunko 1910 (Meiji 43). 26x19cm publisher's wrapper with printed label; [2],30pp on double folded leaves, 16 pages in colour woodcuts, 14 in b/w. Minor signs of use, rather good. Au$900
Charming, delightful, if you like being taken aback every now and then, baffled often, and can overlook the occasional tortured pun. This is very much in the spirit of Miyatake's series of sometimes bewildering and surreal series of postcards issued as extras to his humourous newspaper, Kokkei Shimbun, in 1907. Miyatake wasn't the artist as far as I know, he was writer and publisher and directed his stable of artists to produce the sort of images he enjoyed. The kind of humour he enjoyed apparently earned him four prison sentences.
The text may solve the mysteries of several images; it may explain the point of the book, if there is one. I leave that to you. Worldcat finds no copies outside Japan.
Huh?
Hikifuda. 学用品 ... [Gakuyohin ...]. np [191-?]. Colour lithograph 26x38cm. A nice copy. Au$135
Presumably this hallucinatory hikifuda dates from around the first world war. At first I feared that the 'clay' of 'clay pigeons' had been lost in translation but these dopey looking young soldiers are concentrating rather than thick or stoned. The young men and animals of Japan are prepared.
Hikifuda - small posters or handbills - 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. Here, I believe, the products on offer are school supplies.
Kimono design. Shirokiyagofukuten? 蘆手応用模様 [Ashi-te Oyo Moyo?]. n.p. [191-?]. 59x42cm limp cloth with brushed title label; 30 original colour designs in gouache. A working book and pretty good for such a thing. sold
A giant (comparatively) early 20th century set of finished designs for a pattern book, by the look of them, but certainly used before they were made into this book. Offsetting shows that some of them were not neighbours originally but they have all been numbered one to thirty and some captions or annotations added at much the same time as they were painted. The subtitle above the main title translates more or less as 'pending designs'.
On the back cover is written Shirokiyagofukuten which was an Edo/Tokyo kimono seller, haberdashery, department store for about three hundred years until it petered out in the 1960s. These plant based designs, though, and the pattern books which came from designs like this, are much more Kyoto than Tokyo.
Catalogue - safes. Nagayama Safe Co. 長山式金庫目録 [Nagayama Shiki Kinko Mokuroku]. Tokyo, Nagayama 1911 (Meiji 44). 18x13 publisher's printed wrapper; [34]pp interspersed with a scattering of varied decorative tissue leaves, halftone illustrations. Au$200
Safe catalogues are hard to find but not hard to open. The first few photos illustrate the burning of a small structure with one of their safes inside and the open safe safe and sound, so to speak. But I find it hard to believe that a company that would go the trouble of mounting a small protective tissue over the illustration of the portraits of the emperor and empress inside the safe would deliberately put their portraits anywhere near a fire.
Okano Sakae 少年飛行雙六 [Shonen Hiko Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Shonen Sekai 1912 (Meiji 45). Colour broadside 55x79cm. Rumpled with several short tears around edges and along folds repaired. Au$250
This delightful illustrated journal of a boy's flying adventures was the new year gift from the boy's magazine Shonen Sekai. It's on a waxy paper that may have seemed a good idea when new but does not handle handling so well. This is the second best copy I've seen so far and I'm still looking.
Okano Sakae was one of the generation of artists who came through the western painting department of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts at the beginning of the century, later a pupil of Kuroda Seiki, and collaborator with fellow Hakubakai students on the five volume Nihon Meisho Shasei Kiko.
Okano Sakae 少年飛行雙六 [Shonen Hiko Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Shonen Sekai 1912 (Meiji 45). Colour broadside 55x79cm. With some short tears around edges and along folds repaired. Pretty good. Au$400
This is very much the best copy I've seen so far, not that I've seen many.
Specimen hikifuda. Large hikifuda of a boy flying his mother in a monoplane. n.p.n.d. (1914). Colour lithograph 53x38cm. Stab holes in the top margin, catalogue number on the back, showing it was once in a specimen book. Folded rather than creased. Au$200
That woman and child are modelled on the crown princess and her first son - Hirohito - as they were a few years before. She is adventurous enough to go skylarking but still the boy must drive. Around and below are most of the things that make Japan Japan - cherry blossoms, industry and Fuji.
Hikifuda - small posters or handbills - 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. This one is double the standard size; the timetable or calendar is for 1915.
Petticoat government
Feminist Sugoroku. Maeda Masujiro. 女天下双六 [Onna Tenko Sugoroku]. Osaka 1915 (Taisho 4). 53x77cm colour broadside. Natural browning of the paper, small holes and tears with some repairs. Au$1100
Rare and wonderful. Not the greatest copy maybe, but until someone sees a second copy we won't know. Onna Tenko - woman's world - can be translated as 'petticoat government' and graphic reversals of male and female was long a favourite tool of the anti-feminist anti-suffragists. Which has long made me wonder: the horror of men at having to fill women's roles and do women's tasks is surely the most persuasive argument for equality.
As unlikely as it seems in Japan in 1915 when women were forbidden any political activity, I'm almost convinced that the argument here is for women, why else would they have the arrogant, exasperated, indifferent, harsh, demanding expressions that they must see on men's faces every day.
As far as I can find, Maeda Masujiro is just a name on a couple of later samurai sugoroku that don't look a lot like this. This one seems to have a fair bit of Rakuten in it so I guess he grew into more burly he-man types.
Kimono design. Kyoto Koekai Design Department. 登美草 [Tomikusa]. Kyoto, Torii Saikodo 1915 (Taisho 4). 55x39cm cord tied publisher's patterned boards with title label; 52 leaves: one leaf of text, 50 colour lithograph plates, one leaf with colophon. Some wear to edges and marks on the covers, minor signs of use inside; pretty good. The numbering gets a bit confusing after plate 30 but the total agrees with the NDL entry. Au$850
Forget the quality, feel the size. Is this the largest kimono pattern book ever published? Feel the quality anyway; this is a high class production. Worldcat finds the NDL entry but CiNii comes up empty.
Sugoroku. Kawabata Ryushi. 少年運動双六 [Shonen Undo Sugoroku]. Tokyo, 1916 (Taisho 5). Colour printed broadside 54x79cm. Some separations along folds with some proper repairs. An ok copy. Au$125
The New Year gift from the magazine Nihon Shonen - Japanese Boy. A splendid vision of the life of the active, enthusiastic Japanese boy: success and fame. Compare this with contemporary sugoroku for girls.
Kawabata's career took a curious turn during a 1913 stay in America to study western painting. Apparently he was so impressed with the Japanese art he saw in Boston he switched to being a Nihonga painter. Still, he remained being an illustrator for magazines for quite some time. As did most of the early to mid 20th century artists now revered.
Kimishima Ryuzo. 花ことば双六 [Hanakotoba Sugoroku]. Shin Shojo 1918 (Taisho 7). 55x40cm colour broadside. Rather good. Au$200
This decorative but not always gentle sugoroku about the meaning of flowers was the new year gift for 1918 from the magazine Shin Shojo - New Girl. There is too much pain and misery here for me; a tough bunch these new girls.
Fujiwara Ritsuta. 空界征服双六 [Sorakai Seifuku Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Shonen 1918 (Taisho 7). Colour broadside 79x55cm. A nice copy. Au$480
A delight - the rigours of flying school explained with the careful attention to truth and detail of a Heath Robinson. This was the new year gift from the magazine Shonen.
Japanese textiles. Sample book of woven ribbed silk and brocades for decoration and furnishing. n.p. late 19th, early 20th century. 35x48cm stitched with card wrapper on the back, front wrapper gone but contents complete; 113 samples on both sides of 33 leaves, several more blank leaves. Thoroughly used, staining of the paper but the textiles in good shape. On the back cover is the name Takahashi Masajiro or Seijiro. Au$1300
Size does matter. Small can be elegant and fetching but, with things like this, big is best. Several of the samples cover the full page and all the others are plenty big enough to get the full effect of colour and pattern. What doesn't come through in these pictures is the polish.
Very much a working haberdasherer's sample book, several still have attached paper tags with handwritten numbers and descriptions and a few have small pieces of contrasting or harmonising fabric pasted on for effect. I've seen heaps of Japanese sample books for dress fabrics of all kinds but I don't remember ever seeing an unequivocal furnishing fabric book anywhere near this date. I'm too ignorant to know how and where these fabrics were used; to me they they seem too bold for scrolls and screens and I wonder whether heri - the binding of tatami - is one use. Heri was, I'm told, a significant indication of wealth and class. Still, these are modern fabrics - they are jacquard woven - at a time when western and traditional rooms could sit side by side in one house.
Japanese textile samples. A sample book of bright patterned silk, much of it creped. n.p. [1920s or 30s]. 30x21cm flexible boards; about 800 or more swatches on both sides of 50 double folded leaves. Well used with pieces clipped from many swatches and the occasional missing piece. sold
This is probably the most vivid and cheerful sample book I've had. I would have guessed these are artificial silks but random picks discovered only silk. Cheap and cheerful has been a marketing ploy for centuries but every now again there is reversal; these were not so cheap.
Fire. 火の用心 [Hinoyojin]. A bundle of Japanese fire safety flyers, small posters and brochures from the 1920s and 30s. v.p. v.d. c1920-1941. 62 items plus some duplicates varying between bookmark size and about 38cm high, one 74cm high. A few with damaged edges but still pretty good, some still new. sold
An occasional date sighted, ranging from 1920 to 1941. There are three postcard sized colour prints on clear cellophane and, bundle within bundle, there are twelve calligraphic block printed 'beware of fire' sheets.
Tobari Kogan. 創作版画と版画の作り方 [Sosaku Hanga to Hanga no Tsukurikata] How to Make Prints by Kogan Tohari : Drawn, blok-cut & printed by author [sic]. Tokyo, Hangasha 1922 (Taisho 11). 21x14cm publisher's printed card wrapper with mounted illustration (wear to spine with an old tape mark, stain on the back, other signs of use); 10 mounted b/w photo illustrations, one b/w illustration and six mounted woodcuts, being three blocks with five colours, the key block in black, the complete print all in black, and the finished colour print. A somewhat dishevelled cover but not bad; mild browning, all rather good and fresh inside. The wrappers look like they have been cut back from the page edges but they are folded and that's how the book was issued. Au$2500
An idiosyncratic book printed on tan stiff card which, while browned, is not as browned as it might appear in photos. The prints themselves are crisp and bright. The half-tone illustrations do Tobari's work no favours but I guess they gave some vague indication of his work. He produced so few prints that more than half of them are here.
Tobari has made for this lesson a smaller version of his mysterious print of acrobats: is it political commentary? religious? all just show biz? He was a founding member of the sosaku hanga - creative prints - movement which cut all and any middle men between the artist and final print. I'm embarrassed to admit that I knew nothing of him until recently when I watched three of his prints that I admired and coveted - one of them the acrobats - sell for a few tens of thousands of dollars. So I have learnt that he is hardly a well kept secret but I haven't learnt much about him except that he studied and caught TB in America and was established as a Rodinesque sculptor before turning to print making and that he died youngish, in 1927. He didn't have time to become a grand old man of art like his colleagues Koshiro Onchi, Maekawa Senpan and Kawakami Sumio. Onchi was dismissive of, almost venomous about, Tobari in his 1953 book on modern prints. Tobari was too technically skilled and too emotional and Onchi, for all his achievement, could not produce the exquisite and moving portrait represented by the grey blur on the cover of this book.
This is pretty rare; Worldcat finds only the V&A and BL entries outside Japan.
Catalogue - hats. Watanabe, Tokyo. The Watanabe's Catalogue : Full fashioned and hand finished. Y. Watanabe & Co., Nihonbashi, Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo, [1924]. 23x15cm colour illustrated publisher's wrapper; 6pp, profusely illustrated with photo illustrations. An old fold, small stains. Au$150
72 models of hats for men and women; not just women, mogas - modern girls - jazz age women. So, flappers and cool, sinister men; the stuff of dreams. Mention is made of the first anniversary of the 1923 earthquake but the "New Fashion 1924" on the front cover is an even better guide to its date.
