Japanese scroll - views of Holland. 阿蘭陀眼鏡之絵 [Oranda Megane no-e]. n.p. n.d. (18th or early 19th century). 245x29cm, ink and colour on paper. Blank lead in stained and chewed with stains along, and a piece from, the bottom edge of the first view; rumpled. Five scenes each 38cm wide with blank spaces joined between each. Au$2750
This is what anglophones like me, with characteristic sensitivity, used to call Chinese whispers. I've chosen to call this scroll Dutch whispers: a perfect example of a landscape imagined from second hand - at best - reports. No-one in direct contact with a Dutch trader in Nagasaki would have able to walk away with these views uncorrected. Perhaps more telling is that our artist had scant access to European engravings which were being passed around select circles by the end of the 18th century. They may have seen late 16th century Japanese paintings of the Portugese or those breeches were passed down as oral history. Our artist never got near Nagasaki, saw anyone Dutch, or knew anyone who had.
Oranda Megane literally translates as Hollander glasses or spectacles, no-e just means picture. So does this mean that the viewer can see the world as the Dutch see it?
This is no child's drawing. Neither is it the work of a great artist. But it is by someone who was, at least, well trained with a brush. Often reports and drawings of foreign doings were recorded and copied by scribes for circulation among officials and the well connected. But any educated person was expert with a brush. This looks more personal, maybe even fun give the possibly poetic title, than anything official. It has the essentials: dikes and canals, windmills, massed colonades, multi storey buildings and tall chimneys ... too many hills and mountains but how could any Japanese picture somewhere as flat as Holland? So a fair bit of detail, all the important stuff, has been gathered, digested and incorporated into these views of the Dutch home planet.
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.
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.
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.
Shimizuya Tsunejiro (publisher). 和洋四體以呂波 [Wayo Shitai Iroha]. Tokyo? Shimizuya Tsunejiro mid 19th century. Woodcut in three colours 37x25cm. An excellent copy. Au$500
This elegant table teaches how to write hiragana phonetically with the English or romanised alphabet - what was to become romaji. The Portugese missionaries had formulated a romanised system so that missionaries could instruct their Japanese victims without having to learn how to read Japanese but once they were tossed out of Japan such a system was quickly forgotten. It was only with the opening of Japan followed by the Meiji restoration and orders from the top that modernisation must follow that making Japanese intelligible to westerners became a desirable skill.
In the bottom left corner are numbers.
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$350
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.
Kawaraban. Perry and the black ships. 三都** : *乃色はなし [Santo** ; * no Iro wa Nashi]. np nd (mid 19th century). 18x24cm woodcut. A bit nibbled in the right margin, very good. Au$100
A mysterious little kawaraban that has so far defied interpretation thanks to that damn cursive script. It all seems to relate to one event and since there are cannons, clan banners, a steam ship, and a person very much like the usual portraits of American marines I claim it's Perry's visit. How that includes what look like chopsticks, a tatami and a bonsai ... ? I guess they make characteristic Japanese gifts but that doesn't explain some other things here.
Russian ship kawaraban. 亞魯西亞舩 [Aroshiafune]. n.p. earlyish 19th cntury. 33x44cm woodcut with hand colouring. A small hole up towards the top left corner; a nice copy. Au$800
I continue to be impressed by the ability of Japanese artists to deliver a true picture of something they've never seen, nor met anyone who has. But the captions puzzle me. Things like sea miles, directions, and so on are often provided on pictures of foreign ships but here not only have the details been left out but whatever ship was on the picture that provided the captions has obviously been ignored. When news broke of the sighting of an alien ship a canny printmaker often dug out an antiquated Dutch ship, changed the flags and added whatever gossip and rumours reported. Not so here. I do wonder what that fluffy pendant (fox tail?) is meant to be.
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.
Kawaraban. 欧羅巴人図 [Yoroppa Jin Zu]. n.p. [mid 19th century?]. Woodcut 31x24cm. Rather good. Au$800
Europeans - this is a handy guide to the pesky foreigners who were beginning to swarm around Japan like jackals around a small but plump antelope.
Kawarabans were illicit illustrated news sheets for the streets and 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.
Ready reckoner. 穀相場早見 [Koku Soba Hayami?]. n.p. n.d. [mid 19th century?]. Woodcut 17x23 cm printed in black with volvelle printed in blue attached by a paper twist. Nibble from the bottom edge, pretty damn good. Au$150
A cute if vulnerable ready reckoner for the poorest classes dealing with grain that has somehow survived intact. I guess that you choose a quantity from the outer edge - with numbers from 50 to100 - and the two inner cutouts show you the answers - whatever that is. I have found a couple of uninformative references which only tell us that it is late Edo - ie before 1867.
Ogata Korin & Nakamura Hochu. 光琳画譜 [Korin Gafu]. Toto (ie Edo ie Tokyo), Kinkado n.d. (after 1802). Two volumes 26x19cm publisher's yellow wrapper with title labels, accordion folding; 25 double page color woodcut plates. Wrappers marked and dusty; rather good. Owner's seal at the beginning and end of Yoshizawa Juminato (? - not sure of the reading of this given name); a name that occurs in some good books. Au$4000
Hochu's re-invention of 17th century Ogata Korin is the beginning of a world invasion of form and style that is now familiar to all of us. It took most of the century to be re-invented again in Japan and reach the west but we are now well and truly conquered.
This beautiful book is not the 1802 printing, despite the evidence of Union Catalogue Database of Japanese Texts, confident assertions of many prestigious libraries and optimistic booksellers. Neither is it the 1826 second edition; it is better. When not dated 1802 this Kinkado edition is often referred to as 'after 1868'. Is this because Kinkado's colophon comes from Toto (eastern capital) rather than Edo, the old name before the name change from Edo to Tokyo in September 1868? If so then the cataoguers never saw the probable 1802 printing because the colophon of Omiya Yohei also comes from 東都 - Toto - Eastern Capital. Kinkado's name appears on prints and books from the late 18th right through the 19th centuries, so that's not much help.
Now, Kinkado and Omiya Yohei are the same company. Kinkado was founded by Omiya in the last decade of the 18th century. Suharaya Sasuke bought into Kinkado Omiya Yohei in 1806 and took over in 1823. He adopted the name Kinkado - I can't discover when - and passed it on to his heir.
I have only found three or four books with the Omiya colophon, none of them after 1804. Neither does Kinkado appear as prolific publishers. The main business was wholesale and paper.
Kinkado also published an edition of Oson Gafu (1817), a neo-Korin cousin to our book, apparently using the original blocks in maybe the 1840s. A later edition has Tokyo on the title page and the colours are brasher. Their colour grammar, Usuyo Irome (1826), comes with a Kinkado colophon or a Kinkado and Suharaya Sasuke colophon. Both place Kinkado at Nihonbashi, Edo where they had been since Omiya Yohei's time. The address was used or not used according to no discernible rule. What seems to be a printing of the Korin Gafu from these same blocks appeared with no colophon. And Suharaya Sasuke could be any one of at least three generations, no-one seems sure who was who. In short, it's a jungle. Kinkado's great bird books, the Taka Kagami and the Shucho Gafu, are Meiji productions and are identified as such.
When I say this is better than the 1826 edition it's an unreliable judgment. I've compared this copy with every image of every edition I can find online and all I've really learnt is that no two copies are the same. Not even of this edition. The 1826 printing uses recut blocks, as does this printing, so the original blocks vanished pretty fast. They should have passed from Omiya Yohei to Suharaya Sasuke if Omiya ever had them. Hillier confused me by talking of a second impression and a second edition without making it clear whether they are or aren't the same thing. Recut blocks can't, or shouldn't, be called another impression. Was that careless proof reading or is there another early printing without the hand colouring?
But it's clear that Kinkado used a copy of the 1802 original, ignoring the edition in between. Most of Hochu's techniques and tricks are here: bokashi, tarashikomi and karazuri. In order: colour graduation; applying ink to still wet ink; embossing. What's not here is the extra hand colouring Hochu added but it's often hard to tell.
I've never held a copy of the 1802 edition. Not being friends with many billionaires I'm not likely to. In the meantime, unless there is some other evidence kept secret by those cataloguers who designate it as Meiji there is no reason to accept that. It doesn't sit with other Kinkado books; it doesn't make sense.
Risho. 花火秘伝集 [Hanabi Hiden-shu]. Naniwa (Osaka), Kawachiya Genshichiro [c1817 to 1825]. 15.5x10cm publisher's cloth with remnants of the printed label; 39 double leaves and colophon page inside the back cover, double page frontispiece, woodcut illustrations, some full page. A wormed copy, carefully repaired with washi placed within each folded leaf and the stitching renewed. Most of the worming is towards each end, particularly the back, but there is not so much in the way of serious loss and the whole is legible and remarkably clean and fresh for a book like this. Specially when compared to the only other copy I've ever had in my hands. Au$4500
The first Japanese book on fireworks. One issue of this is dated 1817 but CiNii, the NDL and Waseda are not certain enough to assign a date to the others. Philip's 'Bibliography of Firework Books' does list it but only from a translation of the Kokusho Somokuroku (the national bibliography of books before 1867) entry provided to him by the British Library. There it is dated c1825 and Philips states that no more than six copies are extant in Japanese libraries. This can be revised a touch, not a lot:
This copy is identical to the NDL copy online.
Identical but for wrapper colours to Waseda's copy - including no hint that there was ever a title inside the front cover - until we get to the colophon leaf which is very different. They both bear the name of Kawachiya Genshichiro, both in Shinsaibashi but Osaka rather than Naniwa. Their copy was co-published by Suharaya Mohei of Nihonbashi in Edo (Tokyo) who must be part of the Suharaya/Kinkado tangle.
Cinii finds five entries, three at Tenri University.
Tokyo University's copy is dated Bunka 14 (1817) in the colophon. The colophon, still Kawachiya in Shinsaibashi but Osaka rather than Naniwa, is very different. That copy has an illustrated title page inside the front cover, unlike any other I've found.
Kyushu University doesn't mention colophon or publisher.
Tenri University has a colophon in line with Waseda; they may also have another incomplete copy.
The title translates as firework secrets and, like many trades, the secrets were kept in the trade. Until this book and for at least another fifty years the secrets of fireworks were held in manuscripts. The attrition rate for a book like this with an audience of black-thumbed, fire-prone pyrotechnists must have guaranteed not too many secrets leaked out.
Otsuki Genkan. 西音發微 [Seion Hatsubi]. n.p. [182-?] 26x18cm original wrapper; 3;31;7 double folded leaves (ie 82pp). Some worming, only of moment on a couple of leaves where a couple of characters are obliterated. In a modern chitsu. Au$275
An extraordinarily exact manuscript copy of this pioneering study of western pronunciation by one of the more eminent scholars of Dutch studies. The Seion Hatsubi was published somewhere around 1826 and this is obviously contemporary. Our copyist has skipped the publisher's advertisements at the ends but has otherwise done a job that needs more than a cursory glance to discern from the printed book, even to the extent of reproducing the seals at the beginning and end of the preface. There is a fine tradition of manuscript copies of rare or supressed books in Japan but this is the most exact facsimile I've seen. There is an inscription and small seal inside the back cover that may well identify the transcriber but I can't read it.
Yoshio Shunzo (or Nanko or Josan depending on the translator) & Kusano Yojun. 理学入式 : 遠西観象図説 [Rigaku Nyushiki : Ensei Kansho Zusetsu]. Nagoya, Tohekido 1826 (Bunsei 9). Three volumes 23x16cm publisher's wrappers with title labels (covers fairly dusty and smudged, particularly the front of the first and back of the third); 12 woodcut illustrations in the first volume including a quite up to date world map in two hemispheres and two plates with overlays and volvelles. A rather good set. Au$1650
This study and explanation of western astronomy appeared with different imprints, sometimes dated, between 1823 and 1828. Many cataloguers take their date from the end of the text (Bunsei 6) rather than any publisher's details. Comparing Waseda's copies and this one I'm convinced these are not just printed from the same blocks but are the same sheets with new titles and publisher's matter inserted at each end.
Yoshio was by descent a sort of follower of Shizuki Tadao who introduced to Japan at the end of the 18th century the notion of an heliocentric planetary system but whose work never got beyond manuscripts read by a few friends and followers. Goodman ('Japan and the Dutch') tells us that Yoshio used two fairly basic Dutch books and Tadao's writings to illustrate the systems of Ptolemy, Brahe and Copernicus in the first volume; deals with the sun, earth, planets, stars, constellations, comets and so on in the second and third; and finishes with an appendix on Tadao's attempt to reconcile a Newtonian universe with Chinese tradition.
Giichi Akita. [The entry used by Worldcat names him Hodo Akita]. 算法地方大成 [Sanpo Jikata Taisei]. Tokyo, Kitajima Junshiro &c 1837 (Tenpo 8). Five volumes (25x18cm) publisher's wrappers; 4,156 double folded leaves, numerous woodcut illustrations. A spot of worming in the first cover and a touch in another volume, a rather good set. Au$350
First edition of this manual of land management and surveying, published at a troublesome time in Japanese history: the 1830s brought a movement, fiercely resisted by the authorities, towards the adoption of western science and technology and, relevant to this book in particular, a period of horrendous drought, famine and unrest in rural Japan. Land surveying was primarily concerned with taxation and, before the Meiji reforms, accurate measurement was not only unimportant but unwanted. The extent and value of land was a matter for negotiation.
The intricacies of Japanese land surveying in the early modern period demand long learned essays - and after reading a couple I'm none the wiser - but what is clear is that this book is a major work in the history of rural engineering, survey and management. It was also problematic for the authorities: "problems in surveyor education were aggravated by government censorship. Bakufu officials did not want administrative uses of survey techniques discussed in public. Under the guise of 'respect authority; despise the people (kanson minpi),' the mysteries of official practice were not to be released to the public domain." (Brown: A Case of Failed Technology Transfer - Land Survey Technology in Early Modern Japan; 1998).
The authorities did suppress or attempt to suppress the Sanpo Jikata Taisei; Brown refers us to the preface of the 1976 reprint of this book for details and I came across another reference that claimed the woodblocks were destroyed. This seems fairly scarce outside Japan; the title is well represented in western libraries but once we discard the 1976 reprint I found only two libraries with originals through Worldcat.
Fireworks 星山流相圖書夜之業 [Hoshiyama-ryu aizusho yanogo?]. n.p. 1837 (Tenpo 8) Manuscript 23x16cm plain wrapper, 12 double leaves (ie 24 pages) plus five unbound double leaves and a single sheet with a carefully measured diagram; illustrations through the rest. Dated Tenpo 8 on what must be the last loose leaf with a red seal that I can't decipher. Au$250
Rocketry as weapon rather than fun, though firing off a rocket always has some element of fun. The loose leaves are clearly a continuation of the bound work - the first leaf has a repeat of most the title and we finish with a kind of colophon - but despite a few red numbers I can't swear they are 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.
Flags. 萬国旗鑑 [Bankokukikan] n.p. Shokokan 1853 (Kaei 6). 72x165mm publisher's wrapper (most of the title label gone); [2],44,[2] double leaves, 240 colour maps on 88pp, colour woodcut title, four pages of the text at the start and two at the end. An outstanding copy. Au$1250
A captivating and rare little encyclopedia of world flags. Essential at a time when it seemed that more of them were likely to be seen around Japan. But Japan had a long history of fascination with flags, banners and heraldry; there are no end of such books and manuscripts going back centuries which carry the history of the country, its rulers and wars. So curiosity about the heraldry of the outside world went in tandem with language, history, science ...
The colophon states this was first published in 1846 but I haven't found any actual copy, only this or the 1854 edition from a different publisher. I did find another book with the same title but it turned out to be an eight leaf manuscript. Cinii finds six entries, three each of the 1853 and 1854 editions and I think all those libraries illustrate their copies online. It's easy to see the book online but you won't see a copy like this.
Kurofune Kawaraban. Perry and the Black Ships in Japan. 海陸御固泰平鑑 [Kairiku Okatame Taihei Kagami]. n.p. n.d. [1853?]. Woodcut 40x62cm on two joined sheets. A few small holes, rather good. Au$350
After Perry's MacArthur-Terminator like threat to return after his first visit in 1853 the defence of Japan became paramount and these defence or peace (taihei) prints blossomed. With the number of variations on a theme produced, the prints sellers must have been flat out keeping the populace up to date with the defences around what is now Tokyo Bay. This one is the most cluttered - which is a good thing - I've seen, with ships, bristling fortifications, and bits of landscape everywhere.
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 ships commanded by Perry in 1853, and the return of the beefed up squadron in 1854 to close the deal, 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 (black ship) kawaraban.
Perry and the black ships 異国船帰帆之図 [Ikokusen Kihan no Zu]. n.p. n.d. [1853-54]. 24x34cm colour woodcut. Old folds and some rubbing round the edges; a couple of tiny pinholes; rather good with pleasing colour. Au$6000
Fabulous, in both senses of the word, rare, and satisfyingly baffling. Even with some help from the accompanying poetry this print defies comprehension. It can only be explained with surmises. Starting with the title which can translate as Foreign ship returning home, who can explain why the ship is sailing towards the astounding fish that is Japan and why the look out is pointing that way? A reasonable guess is that artist couldn't find a better old ship print to work from, the picture works better this way, and the rest is unimportant detail. Why the important men are vomiting over the side we will soon learn.
That fish - fugu - pufferfish - exists by itself in another print, Fugu no Zu, a surimono like print that is known by the copy in the Tokyo Metropolitan Library in one of the volumes compiled by Mokitsu Hachiya. Mokitsu was a Tayasu Tokugawa official and writer.
Some of the same text appears on both. Which print came first seems unknown. The fugu on its own seems likely but, while very similar, our fish is much more carefully detailed, usually a sign of the original. What is certain is that both prints appeared between Perry's first visit in July 1853 and his return in February 1854.
The first line of text on the fugu's back reads Hachiman Daibosatsu - Hachiman Great Bodhisattva. By this time Hachiman had evolved from being a god for farmers and fishers to being a god for samurai. That fugu is a floating armory: weapons, armour and regalia, including the crests of three clans defending japan on Odaiba, the artificial island near Shinagawa. Just the sight of that poisonous puffer has sickened the Americans and sent them rushing home, backwards, for a home cooked meal. I think that's what some of the text suggests.
As far as the text on both prints goes I would have a better chance of choreographing a dance from it than reading it. I suspect the modern Japanese reader is also stumped by the poetic allusions and puns: the few notes I have found either miss the point or don't attempt to explain it. It is satirical but is it satirising only the Americans fleeing Japan as all unwelcome foreigners before them? Is it also satirising Japan's defenders, the massed clans around Tokyo harbour? Would they be pleased to be a fugu? Is this why the print is so decidedly anonymous?
This has been called a kawaraban which I think breaches the spirit of what a kawaraban is: a cheap illicit news sheet for sale on the streets. I'm inclined to call it a surimono but I won't make a fuss about it. I've traced three copies: Tokyo university in a collection of satirical prints before and after meiji - they date it to 1864 but that must be the date of the collection, not this print; Stanford copy in an album of drawings and prints relating to the black ships and foreigners; and a copy in the Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde, Leiden.
Russian ship. Putyatin. A Bunkindo woodcut of a supposedly Russian ship. Nagasaki, Bunkindo 1853? Coloured (by stencil or hand?) woodcut on brown paper, 25x37cm. Minor rumpling. Au$475
This presumably is one of Putyatin's ships that arrived in Nagasaki in August 1853 in attempt to match any treaty Perry managed to force on Japan. Like most of these hurried prints produced to capitalise on such dramatic occurrences old, sometimes ancient, woodcuts were dusted off and reworked. In this case it's clear that a Dutch ship has been rebranded Russian. Russian enough: there are still Dutch flags flying. This saved a lot of mucking about, sending an artist down to draw each ship. Few customers would ever see the actual boat.
The British Museum has a more expected Nagasaki print which I swear is from the same block, with text and a crudely added vignette. That text labels it a Dutch ship - "Hollandsche Schip" even though flags have been made Russian. I'd guess the block cutter couldn't read that bit and left it alone. I'm yet to find the original - all Dutch - print and I'm not sure it matters. It was likely adapted from another print anyway. The grandfather of this print, as far as I'm aware, is the print of the Dutch ship Shellach from 1782 and Bunkindo published 'Hollandsche Schip' prints galore drawn from that Shellach print.
There is no text but Bunkindo's seal, lower left. Bunkindo were prolific publishers of Nagasaki prints of things foreign from the late 18th century into the 1850s. I wonder whether the band on deck playing large twirling horns was an improvement introduced for Koops' arrival in 1844 when Bunkindo went to town with prints showing the visiting band's French horns. I also wonder if the paper here as been dyed with persimmon juice, it's certainly persimmon colour. Books expected to be used a lot - like a lending library - were often dipped in persimmon juice to strengthen the edges of the paper but I've never seen another c19th print on brown paper like this. My guess is that Bunkindo were looking for ways to brighten up a well thrashed image. This is not a beautiful print. It's no triumph of Japanese craftsmanship but it is an intriguing example of the souvenir industry that thrived in Nagasaki for Japanese tourists.
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.
[BRIDGMAN, Elijah Coleman.] Mitsukuri Genpo. 聨邦志畧 [Renpo Shiryaku]. Tokyo, Rokyukan 1864 (Genji 1). Two volumes 26x18cm publisher's embossed yellow wrappers with printed labels (front cover of the first volume marked or dusty, the label incomplete); 56 & 48 leaves (ie 208pp in all); five full page maps with colour and a fair quantity of small maps, some with colours; woodcut illustrations. A rather good copy, quite fresh inside. Au$1800
First edition of the adaptation by Mitsukuri Genpo of the American missionary Bridgman's Da Mei lian bang zhi lue published in Shanghai in 1861 or 62; this was reprinted in 1871. The Shanghai version has been wrongly claimed as the first account of the United States in Chinese - but it's sort of true as it is a revision of Meilige heshengguo zhilue published by Bridgman in Singapore in 1838. For the Japanese this is their first thorough and ostensibly trustworthy account, written as it is by an actual American.
I should make it clear that this is an account of the United States, not of the Americas. The first volume is general, covering history, government, education, culture ... and the second volume zooms in on individual states illustrated by a number of small local maps. It is the first account of American democratic government for the Japanese.
I can't tell you how Mitsukuri dealt with Bridgman's reformist proselytising but 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.
Fireworks. 花火新伝事法 [Hanabi Shin Den Jiho]. n.p. [1865] (Keio 1). Manuscript in ink, 24x15cm cloth covered boards lettered by hand; 20 double page spreads 20x24cm mounted on card and framed with grey paper. Front margin wormed spreading into the top margin but barely into the framed sheets; last few leaves chomped in the gutter. None of this is as fatal as it sounds. On the back cover is another inscription dated 1886 (Meiji 19). Au$500
A very cool pyrotechnist's working book, even with the chewing, unlike anything else I've seen. Someone put in a fair bit of work to make a working book into an album. The title can be translated as New Methods of Fireworks. There are almost no published manuals of Japanese fireworks before the 20th century. Risho published a small book in 1817 and that is properly rare. Such information was occult knowledge, circulated in manuscript and passed from master to apprentice. I can't claim expertise but having seen a few 18th and 19th century fireworks manuscripts I am yet to see a second copy of any. It makes sense that every maker had their own method and styles and most every manuscript was peculiar to that.
CORNELL, Sarah S. 地学初歩 Cornell's Primary Geography for the Use of Schools. First Edition. [Chigaku Shoho]. Yedo. [Edo (ie Tokyo), Watanabe [1866?]. 18x12cm publisher's wrapper (insect blemished, title label missing); [72]pp on double folded leaves and seven folding colour maps, two colour maps and some illustrations in the text. A stain in the top corner; a thoroughly decent copy. Au$500
I wonder what, if anything, a Japanese student made of Miss Cornell. After her nonsense about Japan, how could anything else she said be taken seriously? Miss Cornell's Primary Geography - one of a string of geographies she prepared for all stages of schooling - first appeared in New York in 1855. Here we are introduced to the concept and working parts of a map, then run through a brief introduction to the regions of the world.
There seems to be two printings of this "First Edition"; one dated "the 2nd year of Kei-ou" (1866) on the title and apparently without a colophon; the other (our copy) not dated, with a colophon. In this undated copy the text is within borders, the other not. Waseda University also has a third, quite different printing but their copy is severely defective and has no title page or colophon. A Japanese translation was made in 1867. Worldcat finds only one copy of this outside Japan.
[1] 2 3 4   |
