Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695) - Pierre Barboutau (1862-1916) (Author / Ed.)
Artists: Kanô Tomonobu (1843-1912), Kajita Hankô (1870-1917), Kawanabe Kyôsui (Kiyôsui) (1868-1935, daughter and pupil of Kawanabe Kyôsai), Okakura Shûsui (Shiôsui) (1867-1950?), Kanô Tomonobu (1843-1912) and Eda Sadahiko (Sadashiko) (active around 1890.)
Title: Fables Choisies de La Fontaine - Choix de Fables de La Fontaine illustrées par un groupe des meilleurs artistes de Tokio, sous la Direction de P. Barboutau. Tokyo M DCCC XCIV. Imprimerie de Tsoukidji-Tokyo, S. Magata, Directeur.
(Selected Fables by La Fontaine, illustrated by a number of Tokyo's best artists, under the direction of Pierre Barboutau. Tokyo, 1894)
Author and editor: Pierre Barboutau
Printed/published by: 株式會社東京築地活版製造所 - Kabushiki Kaisha Tōkyō Tsukiji Kappan Seizōsho (also known as Tsukiji Type Foundry), directed by Magata Sei (Shigeru). Tsukiji, Tokyo. Printer: Kimura Tokutarô. Distributed by E(rnest) Flammarion Éditeur, Paris (stamp on front cover).
Date: Meiji 27 (1894)
Two volumes, Japanese block-binding (fukurotoji), each 25 x 18 cm. Illustrated covers. Each volume contains 25 unpaginated sheets of fukurotoji, with a total of 28 double-page colour woodblock prints, the texts pages embellished with numerous filigree vignettes of animals and plants. In the first volume a two-page introduction, at the end of each volume a one-page table of contents and on the inside back covers Japanese colophons.
Encased in a contemporary bespoke half-leather cassette with gold tooling, probably the work of a French bookbinder (26, x 20,5 cm).
The delicately coloured fine full double-page colour woodblock printed illustrations accompanying the 28 selected fables are each signed and sealed in the block by the above-named renowned artists of the Meiji period.
Both volumes exceptionally clean and well preserved, only very few isolated small brown spots; the covers almost without signs of wear. The woodblock prints in excellent impressions and fresh colours, with embossing. The cassette with minor traces of use, especially at the bottom signs of wear. A very desirable collector’s item in lovely condition.
Cf. Hillier, The Art of the Japanese book. London 1987, p. 956; Rappard-Boon, The Age of Yoshitoshi. Japanese prints from the Meiji- and Taishô period. Amsterdam, 1990, p. 90, no. 124a. Nathalie Le Luel, La Fontaine sur le mont Fuji : quand les animaux des fables parlent japonais. Etude d'un ouvrage français publié au Japon à la fin du XIXe siècle, in Textimage, Varia 3, hiver 2013 (https://www.revue-textimage.com/07_varia_3/leluel1.html, 17.02.2022). Cf. also BnF Gallica, ark:/12148/bpt6k96809136 et al. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, RP-P-OB-JAP-63 and others; British Museum, 1984,0520,0.1.1/ 1984,0520,0.1.2 (no illustration).
The work is a very fine example of the new synthesis of East and West, of tradition and modernity in the fin de siècle, both in France and in Japan.
sold