Tama Kagami (Mirror of Treasures)

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Tama Kagami ["Mirror of Treasures"]

Kobayashi, Gyokunen [illustrated by].

Kyōto: Fujisawa Shuppanbu, Meiji 34 [1901].

A complete two-volume set of colour woodblock-printed designs by the highly skilled but little-known graphic designer Kobayashi Gyokunen. Each volume includes one fold-out woodblock-printed frontispiece and twenty-five single-page colour woodblock-printed illustrations, many of which use metallic pigments, kirazuri (printing with mica), and bokashi (gradation). Several designs, namely those featuring black ships, Western dolls, a hot air balloon, and electric power lines, show the diffusion of Western technology and culture instigated by the start of Japan's full-blown international trade in the early Meiji period. A rare example of a high-quality zuan book published by a firm other than Unsōdō or Unkindō in the Meiji period. 

Two four-hole-bound (yotsumetoji) volumes, complete, on double leaves, traditional East Asian binding style (fukurotoji). Original wrappers with a few scrapes, predominantly to extremities. Upper wrappers sunned. Light foxing to endpapers. Most tissue guards present. Occasional offsetting, light marks, and minor browning to leaves. [1, 12; 13] leaves. 25.7 x 18.8 cm. 

Tama Kagami (Mirror of Treasures)
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