A bespoke box of bookplates, made especially for Sakamoto Kazumoto (dates unknown) by friend and artist Kamisaki Sunao (1932–); offered with a book detailing the meaning behind the collection.
Little is written about Sakamoto himself, but he was a known collector of book plates, so much so that he became the president of the Nihon Shohyo Kyokai (The Japan Ex-Libris Association) and produced books on the subject. He was a great, early patron to Kamisaki Sunao and encouraged him to continue printing katazome books and prints.
A year before this bespoke box, the Osaka-based publisher Gohachi made a book with Kamisaki about the bookplates he had designed for Sakamoto, Katazome sakamoto shohyoatsu (Collection of stencil-dyed Sakamoto bookplates). Only 50 copies were produced, and in each copy all forty of the stencil-dyed bookplates are tipped in.
What is especially helpful about this book is that Kamisaki details the meaning behind each bookplate, with captions and a supplementary text. In the text, Kamisaki writes a brief introduction to the collection; how, on learning that Sakamoto was suffering with illness, he decided to make him auspicious bookplates. He found that Sakamoto personally prayed to the Senju-kannon (the Thousand-Armed Bodhisattva Kannon, or Avalokiteshvara), a Buddhist deity known for its compassion and readiness to use its many arms to help those in need. This Kannon is typically depicted with 40 arms, each of which represents one of the 25 worlds – in reference to the Buddhist idea of there being twenty-five realms of existence (and 40 x 25 = 1000 arms). This formed the inspiration for the designs, and Kamisaki explains the theory behind the Senju-kannon in greater detail in the supporting text.
This brings us to the curious, yet highly pleasing box with compartments for each bookplate. This is a unique item made for Sakamoto to house each of the forty bookplates. Inside the upper board of the box Kamisaki has written a personal inscription, praying for Sakamoto's health. It would appear that Sakamoto used the bookplates, as some compartments contain far fewer bookplates than others. The box is dated banshu 'late spring' of Showa 58 (1983), which is one year after the Gohachi book was printed (April 1983). Though it is not explained, it is possible that the book plates were made in 1982, and the box was made later to house them neatly.
Sakamoto had also kept an Asahi newspaper article about Kamisaki loosely inserted in the box. It is extremely difficult to find information about Kamisaki online, so the clipping is a valuable text that details Kamisaki's early life and journey into katazome printing and paper-making in Tosa.
