As we know, the aspiring print designer Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861) was initially really having a hard time making a living, at times even obliged to be selling tatami mattings or carve the heads of puppets, until, from 1827 he could enjoy some success when his series of Portraits of All of the One Hundred and…
Or is it The Hague? From the rather typical buildings in Hokusai’s scheme of Western perspective that he includes in his Hokusai manga volume 3 of 1815, it is quite obvious that his original inspiration was some European optical print. From the 1730s, the Dutch introduced such prints, produced in London (most by Robert Sayer,…
The well-known painting of De groote partij is best-known by its Dutch title of De groote partij in de kamer van het Opperhoofd zijn op het Eijland (The Great Party in the room of the Opperhoofd on the Island) that appears on at least four of eight known copies after the original by Kawahara Keiga…
De bekende schildering van Kawahara Keiga van De Groote Partij, naar de Nederlandse titel De groote partij, in de kamer van het Opperhoofd, zijn op het Eijland zoals die voorkomt op tenminste vier van mogelijk acht bekende copieën die naar het origineel van Keiga werden gemaakt (zie hieronder voor een overzicht) heeft op het origineel…
After the Konjaku Zoku hyakki, the Sequel to the Hundred Ghosts, had been published in I/1779, Sekien wasn’t given too much of a break. The continuing success made his publishers again ask him for more. And so he started working on the Konjaku - Hyakki shūi 今昔百鬼拾遺, something like ‘Gleanings of a Hundred Ghosts,’ that…
The second in Sekien’s parade of Ghost Books is the Konjaku zoku hyakki 今昔続百鬼 also found with the title Konjaku gazu – Zoku hyakki 今昔畫圖 続百鬼 of 1779. It is again in the hanshibon format and comprised of three volumes. I couldn’t find a complete set of images of a first edition copy on the…
Quite surprisingly, Joly & Inada in their translation of Sekien’s Gazu hyakki yagyō 畫圖百鬼夜行 start by quoting sort of a mystery preface. It is signed by some Setchuan Riota and dated Anyei 6, that is 1777—a little unlikely for a book that was published the year before, in 1776. Consequently, this preface couldn’t have been…
The Japan Demonium book of Hiroko Yoda and Matt Alt arrived in the mail this week, and I must say that it is quite an impressive and serious work, nicely produced by Dover of Mineola, New York, the one thing I possibly would have preferred is the plates at some more distance from the spine.…
A dear friend is, like me, organizing her books - an exercise in realizing that we don’t live in eternity and must be realistic about what we can still accomplish, so get rid of most. She asked me if I would be interested in some titles and so she sent me four books for which…
Although I had seen the name of Utagawa Toyokiyo 歌川豊清, and even on various occasions, I never bothered to find out who he really was. But working occasionally on the collection of the Museum of East Asian Art at Cologne, I was intrigued by a quite impressive surimono print that he designed at the age…