p1
Nagasaki. 長崎の圖 [Nagasaki no zu]. Nagasaki, Ohata Bunjiemon 1778 (An'ei 7). Woodcut map with a secondary grey block 66x89cm on four joined sheets. Faint sign that it did once fold into a cover. A little browning, rather good. Au$1200
An early edition of Bunjiemon's Nagasaki map, reworked with minor upgrades for another century; until Nagasaki was made obsolete as the only place to get news of foreigners.
Iwahashi Zenbei (or Yoshitaka depending on the transcriber). 平天儀圖解 [Heitengi Zukai]. Osaka, Ikeuchi Yahe &c 1802 (Kyowa 2). 27x19cm (with small variations); [4],38 double folded leaves (the last, the colophon, to be a single leaf pasted down to the back cover); woodcut illustrations throughout, three with moving parts. Light browning; an outstanding copy in unbound sheets, folded but untrimmed and unstitched. Au$1200
A quite remarkable, say I, copy of this guide to Zenbei's Heitengi - a set of astronomical volvelles - issued the year before, and an introduction to astronomy by Japan's leading telescope maker. So, in it's way something of an advertisement - almost a trade catalogue - and it includes a full page illustration of what must be one of his telescopes. Among the celestial and world maps and observations of planets and the moon he made, there is one of Zenbei's three sunspot drawings done in about 1793. Of course we all want a matching set of the volvelles now ... good luck and if you get there before me I curse all your electrical appliances.
This book had no title page, the title is on the binding label, so this set of sheets is absolutely complete.
Mitsukuri Genpo & Morishima Churyo. 改正增補 : 蠻語箋 [Kaisei Zoho : Bangosen]. Edo (Tokyo)? Kenjuku Kanko 1848 (Kaei 1). Two volumes 19x12cm, publisher's wrappers with title labels. Covers a bit blotchy, a nice set. Au$400
A revised and much improved version by master linguist and translator, Genpo, of Churyo's 'Bangosen' (barbarian words) published in 1798, when serious Dutch-Japanese dictionaries were still manuscript fragments or, like the 'Edo Haruma' of 1796, printed and hand written in an edition of 30 copies. Dutch was, of course, Japan's best way to connect with and learn about all things western until Perry's gunboat diplomacy.
Anything produced by Mitsukuri carried a lot of weight. A physician by early training he was a scholar of the west and pioneered the introduction of western science, medicine and technology (like the first description of a steam engine) into Japan, usually via the Dutch or Chinese, and served as translator for the Perry mission in 1853.
魯西亜人 [Roshia Jin]. n.p. mid c19th. 40x28cm, ink drawing in colour. Sometime laid down, browned around the edges, old horizontal fold. Au$450
A good, very good, portrait of an important Russian made at the time that these foreigners began swarming around Japan in hopes of an treaty. The Russians raced to beat Perry as soon as they heard his squadron was on the move but weren't fast enough. Still, they with England, France and Germany managed get some share of the pie.
I think all those seals are collector's seals, a sign that this has long been regarded as pretty damn good. That pose, one hand over the heart (or guarding a wallet?), the other clutching a weapon appears on a few kawaraban and prints with changes in weaponry and decorations. I repeat that, to me, there is seldom any point in trying to track what was copied from where in pictures like these; rather enjoy the variations on a theme.
Perry and the black ships. 新はん 大津絵節 [Shinhan Otsue-bushi]. Tokyo? [185-?]. 18x12cm publisher's colour woodcut cover and contents list inside, woodcut illustrations throughout; 14 leaves including cover and final blank. A well used copy carefully repaired with recent stitching and the last bank leaf laid down; not bad for a flimsy popular song book. Au$175
Otsue-bushi are popular songs that were everywhere from the 17th until the late 19th century. Once past that simple explanation I was as lost in definitions of order, genera, species, as I am faced with a page of Wittgenstein. I leave the rest to you.
The point to this copy is, for me, the first song: a gentleman being entertained or exasperated by the antics of an American dressed in uniform by the imagination of, and fuzzy descriptions given to, the first artists of kawaraban (news sheets) illustrating the American crew of Perry's blackships. This anchors us to 1854 when the Americans came ashore and mixed with the locals.
By law all these song books are rare; I found no mention of this one anywhere.
Perry and the black ships kawaraban. 蒸気車之図 [Jokisha no zu]. n.p. [1854?]. 31x23cm woodcut. A few minor holes, two small tape marks at edges. Au$750
These illicit illustrated news sheets - kawaraban - for the streets were produced by the million for a couple of hundred years so of course few survive. They were produced for anything more interesting than the drop of a hat and the arrival of the Black Ships, the American squadron commanded by Perry, in 1853 and 54 eclipsed any and all tiresome earthquakes, fires, plagues, famines, murders and scandals. For most Japanese this was the same as a squadron of alien space ships arriving on earth now.
These prints are the kurofune kawaraban. This illustrates the miniature train Perry presented to the emperor in March 1854. Like most (or all?) kawaraban it's obvious the artist was nowhere near their subjects and ran up drawings from reports, copies of copies and imagination. This is why these things are so much better than official renderings and photographs.
Kawaraban. 大日本長崎ヨリ萬國海上里數 [Dai Nihon Nagasaki Yori Yorozu Kuni Kaijo Risu?]. n.p. earlyish to mid 19th century. Woodcut 30x40cm. Worming and the bottom right corner professionally repaired. sold
The classic Dutch ship was a required souvenir for every Japanese tourist in Nagasaki and, in various forms and fancies, was dusted off and reworked all over Japan every time a stranger appeared around Japan. This may have been occasioned by news of a Russian ship, American, British, or to fill in a dull patch in the foreign barbarian trade.
Maybe hard to see in my shaky pictures but this is one cheerful bunch of sailors.
Kawaraban. 教育参考萬国動物大會々主宮城 [and] 主宮城 久吉 [Kyoiku Sanko Mankoku Dobutsu Daikaikai Shu Miyagi?] + [Shu Miyagi Hisayoshi?]. n.p. n.d. (mid 19th century). 1. 40x54cm woodcut. Old folds; a short closed tear quite good. 2. 20x27cm, woodcut. On the back are a fair few neat notes that I think are dated Meiji 4 (1871). Au$500
I've seen a couple of similar menageries with similar titles and find this the most appealing. One, that I take to be earlier, has plenty of character but is sparse, less lively. The other, I take to be later, is as crowded but looks more like any number of animals-of-the-world illustrations from anywhere in the world. I've also seen this same print with title across the top.
The kangaroos I'm sure everyone in the world can identify but even an expert naturalist might be surprised by the Mountain Shark of Australia in the bottom right corner. The uncharacteristically cheerful wombat, top left, is of course a bear.
MURRAY, Lindley. 英吉利小文典 [Igirisu Shobunten] Abridgment of Murray's English Grammar. n.p. n.d [186-?]. 18x12cm publisher's wrapper with title label (rubbed). Quite good. Au$300
This is the first part and I know a second part exists because Waseda has a copy - but not this first part. Worldcat finds neither and a hunt through Japanese libraries doesn't help much. No-one seems clear on when this appeared but it is likely to be with the beginning of government schools and is a good partner for the version of Murray's spelling book published by the Tokugawa Kaiseidzio school in 1866.
Lindley Murray. 英語階梯 [Eigo Kaitei] An English Spelling-Book, with reading lessons, for beginners at the school Kaiseidzio in Yedo. First edition. Yedo. The 2. year of Kei-ou. (Tokyo, 1866). 18x12cm publisher's wrapper, without title label. Thoroughly annotated by a bored student on the covers, inside and out, the first blank and half title, at the very end and the back blank; clean from the title page on. What a canny colleague called evocative and still rather good. Au$500
The first English spelling book published in Japan according to Ishihara Chisato who announced in 1980 (『英 語 階 梯 』と Lindley Murray のス ペ リ ン グ ブ ッ ク に つ い て [Eigo Kaitei and Lindley Murray's Spelling Book] ) that it is a slightly modified version of Part I of Murray's 'An English Spelling Book' from a copy of the 45th edition (Baudry, Paris 1839) then owned by the Tokugawa government school.
With all of these handy lessons for beginners in a new language I wonder how any Japanese learnt enough English to hold a sensible conversation about anything.
Worldcat only found, for me, Kyoto U's 1867 reprint without the name of the school.
Note that the book opens right to left.
Les premiers pas de l'enfance. Orthgraphe Francaise, a l'usage de l'ecole quai-sei-zio. Premier edition. Yedo ... (1867). [sic]. Yedo (Tokyo), 1867 (Keio 3). 18x13cm publisher's wrappers with printed label (marked, stitching broken); 32pp including 10 pages of alphabets. Pretty good. The red stamp on the title is the school's. Au$300
The Kaiseijo (quai-sei-zio or Kaisezio or Kaiseizyo or Kaiseidzio or Kaiceizio depending on who wrote it) was the Bakumatsu school for barbarian studies, founded in 1857 and re-named in 1863. In 1865 the military joined in with this maybe unwelcome but necessary education and, I've read, quadrupled the number of students with 300 learning English and 100 learning French. It seems they began printing their own texts in 1866. Come Meiji it became the Kaisei gakko and eventually part of the conglomerate that became Tokyo University.
It's easy for blinkered anglophones like me to forget that the Japanese were busily digesting the whole planet, not just learning fractured English from absurd phrase books. They learnt many fractured languages from absurd texts and still somehow leapt into the modern world.
Tatsunosuke Hori et al. 英和対訳袖珍辞書 A Pocket Dictionary of the English and Japanese Language. Second and revised edition. At Yedo 1867. Tokyo, Kuradaya Seiemon 1869 (Meiji 2). Two volumes 15x22cm contemporary limp boards (battered, stitching broken but all solid enough). Stains, mostly at each end and some fairly mild worming at the very end. Sensibly divided into two volumes toward the end of N. Used but comparatively handsome copy of a book usually found as an incomplete wreck. Inscription in red on the back of the title: "This Book belongs to Miyake" and Miyake ownership seals and inscription at the end. Au$1100
Actually a new printing of the 1867 edition as, I suspect, are several of the copies catalogued by folk who haven't looked properly at the very end of the book. Tatsunoske's first edition appeared in 1862; apparently 200 copies were printed. A second revised edition arrived in 1866 and the 1867 printing has the English type newly made into wood blocks. Then comes our 1869 printing with the notice of approval (1869) on the last page and Kuradaya's name inside the back cover. And the Kaiseisho - the Bakumatsa school - seal on the tile and/or at the end has been changed for the Tokugawa seal. If you want to get fussy: this is type B of the colophon designated by Tomo Endo in his census of copies in Eigakushi Kenkyu (2006).
It seems accepted that this was the first English-Japanese dictionary. The Angeriagorian Taisei was compiled in 1814 but that has been dismissed as a word book - a mere 6000 words - and was only circulated in manuscript among the chosen few. A Japanese-English dictionary followed ours a few years later.
Hikifuda : NYK Line 伏木湊川ノキワ 水戸半右衛門 [Fushikiminato-gawa Nokiwa Mito Han Uemon]. n.p. [187-?]. 36x49cm colour woodcut. Bug chewed and carefully repaired, either some time ago or done using old paper. Au$200
This large and still quite handsome steamship advertises ships, routes and fares from Fushikiminato, now part of Takaoka City. Takaoka Museum illustrates their copy online and it is just as chomped as this one.
掌中 : 新貨定規略 [Shochu : Shinka Jogi Ryaku]. Kagoshima Prefecture, Dajokan 1871 (Meiji 4). 36x49cm folding into 12x6cm publisher's wrapper with title label (a bit grubby); woodcut illustrations of coins in colours. Rather good. Au$200
A palm size guide - until it's unfolded - to the new currency issued by the Ministry of Finance. Added to the mass of new things for Japanese to learn and new ways of thinking, with the Meiji restoration, was the new yen based currency. 1871 must have been a tough year for the slower thinking Japanese - I'm still hazy about metrification - and 1871 bought a new calendar, new system of time keeping, new currency, a new education system, new haircuts ...
I can only find mention of this in two provincial museums in Japan, nowhere else.
Mill, John Stuart and Nakamura Masanao. 自由之理 [Jiyu no Ri or Jiyuno Kotowari depending on the transcriber]. On Liberty. Shizuoka, Kihira Ken'ichiro [1872]. Five volumes in six books 23x16cm, publisher's yellow wrappers with title labels. Preface in English signed EWC, this was Edward Warren Clark who taught science in Shizuoka and, later, Tokyo. Covers a bit smudged, a nice set. Au$2000
The first Japanese edition of Mill's On Liberty - a book that Douglas Howland (in Personal Liberty and Public Good) tells us was "reportedly read by the entire generation of educated Japanese who came of age during the restoration".
I hoped to be able to nail down any issue points and clear up any confusion between the two forms this book takes: the five volumes bound as six books, as here, with volume two divided into two; or bound as five books. The confusion is heightened because many libraries and cataloguers use the 1871 date on the title, ignoring the preface dated January 1872.
I thought that a sort of colophon for Dojinsha - Nakamura's school - pasted inside the last back cover might help, but that leaf appears in both versions. Only the cover labels seem to be different. I've found nothing in any language that examines the printing history and while the rule of thumb - everywhere in the world - is that the more costly version - in materials and time - usually came first, I've had to conclude that there isn't any discernible priority and the difference may well be where, rather than when, the books were bound.
Nakamura's translation of Smile's 'Self Help' was also published by Kihira in Shizuoka and it seems that Kihira Ken'ichiro existed as a publisher only for Nakamura's translations of these two books which he made in Shizuoka - home of the deposed Tokugawa shogun - where he taught after his return from England in 1868 until 1872. In other words, Nakamura was really the publisher of both books.
Worldcat finds five, maybe six, locations outside of Japan - one in Britain, the rest in the US - all but one are catalogued as 1871.
Inoue Kohe & Hasegawa Sadanobu (artist). 西洋画引節用集 Seiyowuyebiki setuyowusiyu [Seiyo Ebiki Setsuyoshu]. Osaka, Onoki Ichibe 1872 (Meiji 5). 18x12cm publisher's wrapper (grubby, title label missing); double page colour frontispiece, small illustrations throughout. A little inoffensive worming, used but very decent copy for an old school book. In place of the title label is written: 'English of words'. Au$400
Another entrancing little educative book that leaves me stumped as to how anyone ever learnt anything. A baffling selection of English vocabulary made easy with illustrations so that any child can confidently talk and write about leeches, ear-picks, grave diggers, widowers, limbo, kidney beans, and nostrils. Unlike many such books this hasn't all been lifted wholesale from some English or American primer. The illustrations are by artist Hasegawa Sadanobu II and are all properly Japanese; these are the ear-picks, grave diggers and widowers that every child will see about them. How long will it take you to works out 'Shalms' - a boy riding a buffalo?
Worldcat finds two copies outside Japan: Brigham Young and the British Library. This opens right to left by the way.
Hashizume, Kan'ichi (publisher). 銅版 小学入門 地理初歩 [Doban : Shogaku Nyumon : Chirishoho]. Tokyo, Hashizume 1875 (Meiji 8). 11x8cm publisher's wrapper with title label; 22 double leaves (44pp), illustrations thoughout. An outstanding copy in the original printed outer wrapper (fukuro). Au$200
Another charming little version of this introduction to elementary school studies, this time engraved (Doban in the title means engraved) and devoted to geography. There are quite a few versions of Shogaku Nyumon under different titles, varying in subject, charm, interest and form. I've traced mention of another Hashizume Shogaku title but not this one.
A universal truth in all times and all cultures
小學入門 : 教授繪解 [Shogaku Nyumon : kyoju etoki]. Tokyo, Kodama Yashichi 1877 (Meiji 10). 18x12cm publisher's colour woodcut front wrapper, illustrated throughout. A revolting copy. Au$300
Give someone young - or young at heart - a picture of a face, an implement, a spare moment, and they will draw a moustache on that face.
There are quite a few versions of Shogaku Nyumon under different titles, varying in subject, charm, interest and form. This one, called the professor's illustrated guide, is rare and would be charming ... if. I've taken the publication details from the single opac entry I could find, not from the rag of colophon at the end of the book.
Note that our artist has also added the other touch essential once they were invented: spectacles on the swinging boy in the background.
Ambrotype photograph of two young women dressed as men. n.p. (c1880?). 104x76mm with a piece from the bottom right. Original kiri wood case with modern replacement of the loose inner frame. A quarter plate, which is generous for a Japanese ambrotype. Some scratches; a strong and clear image. Inscription inside the case, likely by the photographer, indicates that the photo was taken in Tachiai-cho in Tsu, now the capital city of Mie prefecture. The indistinct smudges on the back of the case might give the ages and partial names of the sitters but defied even the expert who gave me what I have to make proper sense of it. They read Hisa and Fuji where I saw "cut it out" and eight shillings. So, thanks to Counsell-sama, "20 year old Hisa" and "14 year old Fuji" is the current diagnosis.
As we all know, despite what we're told, the world is a simple place. So let me explain 19th century Japanese photography to you. For the second half of the century there were two types of photographs: prints on paper which were public, they were made to be sold, given away or displayed in albums; and photographs on glass - ambrotypes - which were private. Ambrotypes were the choice for people who wanted a portrait for themselves and their family. They were cheaper and they were protected in a kiri wood case; fragile treasures enhanced by their inherent luminosity. Souvenir photos of group occasions aren't unknown but, of course, a photograph had to be taken for each sitter who wanted one. An ambrotype is a fixed negative on glass which becomes positive against a black background.
Here's something I've never seen before. Not just two young women in drag but two women having fun. They are lampooning the postures and attitudes of self important men trying to make an effect. The gaping neckline and that belligerent grimace on the face of the standing woman is exactly that of men who want to be seen as tough, as warriors. The sitting woman is a cultured gentleman, serene in the certainty of his perfection. The faithful retainer defies us to raise a hand, a word even, against his master; the master gazes over our shoulder into worlds we will never share. That book is no accident. If you can find a thousand ambrotypes of Japanese women I doubt you will find ten who do not look uneasy, uncomfortable, doleful, morose, sullen, anxious or some combination of them all.
There's a heap of stuff written about gender and sex in Japan and another heap about 19th century photography in Japan but I'm yet to find any suggestion that such a thing as this photo might exist. So how did this photograph happen? This is the time of straitened social tolerance for Japan; not that women ever benefited much from Japan's famous gender and sexual tolerance. Where did they get such well tailored outfits? This is half a lifetime, at least, before the advent of women's theatre companies. And much longer since women were banned from the stage. These are not some geishas or working girls frocked up by a commercial photographer to enact an exotic scene for sale to tourists. An ambrotype meant that this was and remained private. No copies can be made, the negative leaves with its owner. Who were this fabulous pair?
Sada Kaiseki. 冨国歩ミ初メ [Fukoku Ayumi Hajime]. Tokyo, Sada 1880 (Meiji 13). Woodcut broadside 36x52cm, stencil coloured? Some small holes and separation along folds; pretty good, the colour bright. Au$950
This captivating woodcut which looks like an advertisement for imported treasures is instead a strident protest and attack on these gewgaws. Sada was a troublesome priest but no reactionary flat-earther, not quite. He wasn't simple. He developed complex theories of science, culture and economics and saw the opening of Japan to this slew of imports as the cause of inflation and hardship for the lower classes. This woodcut was produced to promote the boycott of foreign goods and lists specific targets. Sada spent the last years of his life organising boycott societies and died - in 1882 - on a lecture tour.
This was issued with an outer wrapper which suggests to me this was not given away, it was sold. Waseda University illustrates two copies, one in better shape but carelessly coloured compared to this. The other is fairly worm eaten. They do have a wrapper, which, according to the provenance, belongs to their better copy but it is separately catalogued without any mention of Sada. Worldcat finds the NLA copy.
Exhibition - Tokyo 1881. Utagawa Kunitoshi. 第二回内国勧業博覧会 [Dai Nikai Naikoku Kangyo Hakurankai]. Tokyo, Shimizu Kahei 1881 (Meiji 14). 38x26cm colour woodcut (a bit rumpled). Au$300
A useful birds-eye view of the second national industrial exhibition, held in Ueno Park in 1881. It, despite hard times, quadrupled in size and almost doubled the attendance of the first, 1877, exhibition. Centre stage is the clock tower by Kaneda Ichibei.
Elephant advertisement. 天竺渡り : 生大象 [Tenjiku Watari : Nama Daizo]. Osaka, Tamaki Seishichi 1883 (Meiji 16) Woodcut broadside 37x55cm. Rather good. Au$650
A kawaraban style advertisement for the great elephant show and a higher class - and grander - bit of art than the ones produced in Yokohama that I've seen, one dated 1875 and one 1883.
1863 was the year of the elephant in Japan, the great Indian elephant drew squillions of spectators and artists and printmakers went crazy. It wasn't the first elephant to arrive in Japan but it had been near 150 years since the last one. Apparently Raffles sent one in 1808 as a deal sweetener but it was refused and expelled - with a hundred bales of wheat from the shogun for the return journey. Just as well, while elephants had been celebrated in art for centuries, elephants in person didn't have long happy lives in Japan.
The 1863 elephant went on tour after a spell in Tokyo but is our elephant the same one? Is it the same elephant who starred in Yokohama which, according to the unreliable and incongruent ages given on different prints, was too young? Certainly our elephant has progressed from being a drawcard by merely existing to being the star of a theatrical show.
Yoshida Isojiro. 生徒必携 : 新撰小学体操術 [Seito Hikkei : Shinsen Shogaku Taisojutsu]. Tokyo, Shueido 1885 (Meiji 18). Two volumes 13x19cm publisher's wrappers with title labels; a folding plate and small illustrations throughout. A nice copy. Au$125
And a nice little book, a self proclaimed essential set of physical exercises for school kids. The boys are the ones in western clothes, the girls swaddled in traditional dress. Worldcat finds no copy outside Japan.
