Excellent bookplate from vol. 11 of Hokusai’s famous Manga.

Tangled in a kite. Hokusai showing off his humor again.

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) The Manga: 伝神開手 (Denshin Kaishu) Transmitted From the Gods, A Revelation of All Things

Production Date: 1819-1834 — this bookplate comes from a book printed from the original 1st edition printing blocks.

Place of publication: Nagoya-shi (Aichi-ken) or Edo (present day Tokyo)

STUNNING! EXTREMELY RARE BOOKPLATE BECAUSE, WELL, THiIS IS AN EARLY IMPRESSION FROM THE ORIGINAL FIRST EDITION BLOCKS, AND SO ABOUT AS GOOD AS IT GETS.

SMALL WORM REPAIR ON THE EDGE OF THE LEFT SIDE OF MARGINS.

SADLY, HALF THE CONTENT OF THIS BOOK HAD BEEN SCRIBBLED ON. IT IS FOR THAT REASON I BROKE THE BOOK UP AND AM NOW OFFERING THESE HIGHLY VALUED BOOKPLATES. THERE ARE NO SCRIBBLE MARKS ON THE BOOKPLATES I HAVE UP FOR AUCTION.

WELL OVER 180 YERAS OLD, THIS A CHANCE TO OWN AN ARTIFACT OF THE WORLD’S HISTORY. Price reflects both the state of preservation and how widely recognized the image is.

I will work hard to provide fast and courteous service, as my aim is complete customer satisfaction. Thank you for visiting my store. In other words, bid with confidence.

Several facts regarding hand-made washi paper:

Tone, texture and thickness vary a lot when printing on hand-made paper that was produced by farmers during the winter months. As well, washi, being that it is hand-made paper, occasionally had large brown fibers or other materials that entered the water and paper vats used in production. These blemishes are of course not a misprint or damage. It seems that printmakers of that time were neither obsessive nor selective about the uniformity of each individual sheet of paper. After all, these books were never printed for elite collectors with safe-deposit boxes. In fact, they were intended to magnify the hearts and minds of Everyman.

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Pardon the editorial, but Hokusai was—as all true poet/creators are—an agent of revelation. Lordy, if our man from Edo cast his interested gaze into the crinkles of our everyday-workaday tinfoil, he’d have revealed what no man had ever considered worthy of revelation. Hokusai rocked rock. Rocked whatever he set minds eye to!

“The poets eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, doth glance from heaven to earth, earth to heaven, and through perception bodies forth the shapes of things unknown, and to airy nothing gives a local habitation and a name.” —William Shakespeare

The Revelation of All Things, or so the conceit goes, must surely have hatched in a Midsummer Night’s Dream.

A single work by an artists such as Hokusai is a daily reminder of the revelation that is the world around us.

“A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors.” —Charles Baudelaire

The same holds true for a book of unparalleled drawings, or a print from one adoring our walls.

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A bit of friendly advice on matting bookplate diptych prints before framing:

All bookplates that I have up for auction haven’t been butchered down the center seam waiting to be pieced together. Since these images were never intended to be assembled as a single print no attempt has been made to do so. Personally, and for justifiable aesthetic reasons, I prefer to mat bookplate diptychs with a half inch or 1.2 centimeter space left between the two separate panels. It is also more archival, saving the print from harmful and messy taping or glueing at the seam. If you do attempt this, you may find that the two halves don’t even line up from top to bottom (end result—you’ll be wearing a suit from a tailor who’s not paid the dues). Remember, once this action is done it can’t be undone. When considering the fact that the art is forever fresh and alive as it is, what reason is there to meddle with it by reassembling it to your particular preferences (hubris perhaps?). Just a bit of friendly advise, but as always, I leave such matters to the discretion of the buyer.