Peter Harrington
MARINE LIFE - KANDA, Gensen. 
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Nitto gyofu (“The Illustrated Fish of Japan”). [Japan: c.1741]. ¶ 5 vols, octavo (267 x 187 mm), ff. 52, 53, 47, 41, 41. With 310 hand-painted illustrations (1 full-page); text in Japanese. Original buff paper wrappers, renewed white thread fukuro-toji binding, manuscript paper label on front wrappers. Housed in modern brown cloth folding case. Former auction ticket tipped in to front free endpaper of vol. I, red ownership seals on vol. I f. 3. Wrappers a little scuffed, occasional worming to wrappers and contents repaired throughout, no significant worm holing to illustrations, a couple of ink marks on vol. I f. 15, illustrations bright: an attractive example. ¶ A beautifully hand-painted manuscript of the first Japanese illustrated compendium devoted to marine life. We have seen no other copy as lavishly hand-painted as this one. This copy was produced by an unknown artist for the Naito family, domain lords in modern-day Miyazaki Prefecture. Nitto gyofu introduces over 300 species of marine creature, with information on their names, geographical distributions, physical descriptions, taste, toxicity, and medicinal uses. In addition to the many species of fish there are also eels, pufferfish, various types of shark and whale, octopi, catfish, turtles, and shells. The compendium was produced by Kanda Gensen, a physician based in Edo, and circulated widely in manuscript form only. Gensen progressively revised and edited his work over 30 years, producing four iterations that were copied and spread by other artists. According to the National Diet Library of Japan, the oldest iteration (1719) was uncoloured and had sub-standard illustrations, the second (1731) was popular but shared the same flaws, and the third (1736) was the first to be coloured but was only produced for the perusal of the shogun. This present iteration (fourth, 1741) represents the culmination of his efforts. There are comparable manuscripts in the Nagoya University Library (487.5/Ka) and the National Diet Library (7-197), but neither with as detailed or luxurious illustrations. ¶ Provenance: Naito family of Miyazaki Prefecture, with their red ownership stamps internally and their shelf labels on the front wrappers. The stamps are similar to that of Naito Fuko (1619-1685) and Naito Rosen (1655-1733), both haikai comic poets. As both were dead by the time of this book’s production, it is likely that a descendant reused their stamps - Isseido Booksellers, October 1999, with their ticket inside the folding case - Colin Franklin (1923-2020), the distinguished British bibliographer and author of Exploring Japanese books and scrolls (1999) - Martin Schøyen (b. 1940), the Norwegian collector of rare books and manuscripts, with his pencil pressmark in the folding case.
90000,- EUR Sachgebiete: Asien, Buchmalerei, Illustrierte Bücher, Japan, Zoologie Kontakt zum
Differenzbesteuert/Subject to margin taxation
