JAPAN Described & Illustrated by the Japanese, 1897 ~ vol. 4 ~ Brinkley, Millett

I believe that this is from the 1897 ORIENT EDITION (Limited to 500 numbered copies).  English text.

Volume includes numerous plates including chromolithographs, hand-colored photographs, woodblock prints, and more. Thick boards originally bound in decorated cloth (print is of a hydrangea), most of which has ripped away. A beautiful work published at the height of Japanese-mania, of which Boston was a hub. Only Section 4 (Medieval Japan + Yoshitsune, Genghis and the Mongol Invasion).

The book is bound in the traditional Japanese book binding style known as "fukuro-toji", which means "pouch binding."  In this binding process, sheets of paper are printed (woodblock and/or text) on only one side. They are then folded in half with the printed side out.  The folded printed sheets are then stacked together along with similarly printed and folded covers and the unit secured along the spine, which is the side opposite the folds, to form the book. This technique gives you the folded pages (double leaves) which are open at the top and bottom forming the pouch ("fukuro") which the binding technique is names for.  As a general rule, the "fukuro-toji" books are secured/tied with (Yotsume toji bindings) in where four small holes are made along the spine edge and the sheets and covers are then bound together tightly with string that wrap around the spine. Generally, the spine is not covered except for small portions at the top and the bottom.

Please ask any questions before bidding or buying.

Thanks!

Volume IV. (pages 113~152)
Mediaeval Japan. Pictures include:
Ogawa Flower Collotype
Sanjo Street, Kyoto
A Group of Servants at a Japanese Hotel
A Group of Boys and Girls - hand colored albumen print 8 x 10 ½
A Pilgrim - hand colored albumen print 3 ½ x 5 in
Oyama in Province of Sagami
Gathering Shell-Fish at Low Tide
Grocery and Fruit Shop - hand colored albumen print 8 x 10 ½ in
Main Street, Yokohama
Little Girls Dressed for an Occasion
A Paper Store
Tub-Maker
A Geisha - hand colored albumen print 8 x 10 ½ in
Basket Vender
Dancing Girl
Tomb of Soga Brothers, Juro and Goro
A Lane in Hommoku
O-Suwa Park at Nagasaki - hand colored albumen print 8 x 10 ½ in
Tonosawa in the Hakone Mountains
The Custom House at Yokohama

Yoshitsune, Genghis and the Mongol Invasion. Pictures include:
Acrobats - hand colored albumen print 8 x 10 ½ in
Theatre Street, Osaka
A Family Group
Actors in Court Dress of Ancient Times
Tea House in Ueno Park, Tokyo
Mat Makers - hand colored albumen print 8 x 10 ½ in
Artists Painting a Portrait
Pilgrim Carrying Shrine
Japanese Dogs
Woodblock (xylograph) Reproduction of Painting: A Painting of the Kamakura Epoch, Twelfth Century

Please read the condition description carefully--additional photos available upon request.


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Japan: Described and Illustrated by the Japanese
In 1896, Tamamura Kozaburo, a highly successful commercial photographer in Yokohama, received an order from a Boston publisher for what eventually would lead to the production of more than one million hand-colored albumen prints. At a time when most publishers were using illustrations made by cheaper and faster photomechanical processes such as collotype or halftone, J. B. Millet Company used original photographs to illustrate no less than 16 different folio editions of the multi-volume Japan: Described and Illustrated by the Japanese published between 1897 and 1898. The publisher limited the most exclusive editions to 25 sets, available by subscription only, with larger editions numbering 750 to 1000 sets.

As stated on the title page, Japan: Described and Illustrated by the Japanese was “Written by eminent Japanese authorities and scholars” and edited by Captain Francis Brinkley. It also includes an essay on Japanese art by Okakura Kakuzo, a student of Ernest Fenollosa and the first curator of Asian art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The Japan volumes offer a detailed description of the history and culture of Japan. They cover a wide range of topics, including marital and family relations, women in Japan, art and literature, religion, customs and traditions, crime, commerce, and politics. Typical of Meiji era Japanese tourist photography, the hand-colored photographs show city views, architecture, historic sites, landscapes, genre scenes, and portraits of Japanese people. The extraordinary number of original photographs used in the total number of sets of all the various editions make this one of the most ambitious and remarkable achievements ever in the history of 19th-century photographic publishing. As Denise Bethel, director of the Photographs Department at Sotheby’s in New York, observed, “[It] may be the last great book to be illustrated with original photographs.”