Maggs Bros. Ltd.

A fine example of Meiji period woodblock printing, with fabulously original designs for textiles by Kobayashi Gyokunen (dates unknown).

What is quite surprising is that, despite the luxurious printing of this book and its intricate designs, not much seems to be findable about the artist Kobayashi Gyokunen, other than a small number of books that are attributed to him between 1901 and 1904. Clearly he was a Kyoto-based artist who collaborated with the local publishers Unkindo and Fujisawa Bunjiro.

In context – from the end of the nineteenth century, publishers in Kyoto began to produce extremely lavish, woodblock-printed pattern books for kimono and textile designs, tying into the local craft tradition of luxury textiles. The most famous publisher was Unsodo, but there were also smaller publishers who were catering to the same market. The present book is an example of one of the lesser known publishers, Fujisawa Shuppan-bu. In the colophon it is noted that it was both published and printed by Fujisawa Bunjiro.

The books themselves contain beautiful illustrations of kimono designs. Each volume opens with a fold-out plate, richly printed with mica. The design range from more classic botanical motifs to more playful, modern motifs showing shogi pieces as well as Western-style dolls and samurai.

Extremely rare. Only one copy in OCLC (NDL Tokyo).