Maggs Bros. Ltd.

A highly ambitious and accomplished title by Sekino Junichiro combining intaglio and relief printing.

This work is a play on Botticelli's famous painting The Birth of Venus (c.1480s), which Sekino has reinterpreted across a series of ten plates and accompanying text. In Sekino's version , he pays attention to the individual components of Botticelli's painting, plus additional scenes around this moment. We see the Hora of Spring and Zephyrus, alongside townscapes and still lifes. There is a reoccurring motif of shells, too, as a nod to Botticelli.

Each of the plates are immensely technical and show the very best of Sekino's ability as an artist and printmaker – to be able to draw an image from his imagination, then choose the best combination of printing methods to heighten its effect. Next to the plates is a caption explaining the specific printing methods, which include combinations of mezzotint, aquatint, drypoint etching and engraving. The text accompanying the plates also warrants attention. Sekino cut the text from woodblocks, printing them over a pattern background in blue and magenta. Typographically the text is unusually arranged with a combination of illustrated vignettes which add to the overall sense of surrealism in this book.

Very rare. Only one copy in OCLC.