Esagashi taizenshū: kyōiku moji-e (Great compilation of hidden pictures: character-pictures for education)

ENQUIRE

Esagashi taizenshū: kyōiku moji-e ["Great compilation of hidden pictures: character-pictures for education"]

[Utagawa, Kunitoshi (illustrated by)].

Tōkyō: Kokkadō, [ca. Meiji 25 (1892)].

A mid-Meiji period compilation of hidden-picture puzzles and moji-e for children. The work is split into two parts: Tōsei sanjūni mensō ("Thirty-two amusing expressions of the present day") and Kyōiku moji-e ("Character-pictures for education"). The first part features 28 illustrations containing hidden images, mainly of animals (with answers in the back of the volume), and 32 illustrations (in the upper panels) of people pulling amusing faces. The second part features 31 hidden-picture illustrations (with answers in the back) and moji-e illustrations of people and animals twisted into the Iroha characters in the upper panels. While the illustrator is unnamed, it seems probable that Utagawa Kunitoshi (1847-1899), an artist with whom the publisher, Yamazaki Gyōzaburō (1864-?), worked closely on several other books, adapted the moji-e illustrations from works by well-known Edo period artists. The title on the accompanying book-envelope includes two more subtitles: Shōnen hikkei ("A manual for boys") and Kokkei sanjūni-so ("Thirty-two amusing expressions"). The last page of the second part notes that the book is the "middle volume" (presumably of three volumes), but no records of a third part, let alone physical copies of the "first" and "middle" volumes bound together here, were traced in OCLC or major Japanese library databases.

One four-hole-bound (yotsutoji) volume, complete, on double leaves, traditional East Asian binding style (fukurotoji). Original wrappers, very lightly soiled and worn, original mounted daisen title panel present. Minor occasional marks, soiling, and thumbing internally. Housed in original colour woodblock-printed book-envelope, with tears and repairs. [16 unnumbered leaves]. 16.6 x 11.6 cm. 

Esagashi taizenshū: kyōiku moji-e (Great compilation of hidden pictures: character-pictures for education)
SOLD