Zatto Ichiran Zenpenãè¥åä 覧å ç - Rare Book Insider
book (2)

Jippensha Ikku åè¿"èä ä , here as é"æå Suisaishi. author

Zatto Ichiran Zenpenãè¥åä 覧å ç

  • $850
Jippensha Ikku åè¿"èä ä , here as é"æå Suisaishi. author. Zatto Ichiran Zenpenãè¥åä 覧å ç . Kyouto, Yoshinoya Nihei, Zodiacal date on the title page of 1819. 2 volumes 21.9 x 14.3cm in gray-green wrappers string-bound Japanese-style, fukuro-toji with original printed title slips. Jippensha Ikku (1765-1831), comic author and "man of mode," was an important member of the gesaku literary movement of the 19th C., his most famous work being the Tokaidochu Hizakurige (known as the Shank's Mare). Though titled a "zenpen", volume one, it appears to be complete in two volumes, as here. Ikku has created a little sharehon for the playboy set. The title illustrates the work's sly humor, and roughly translates as "This and That," or even "A Perspective on Stuff, volume one." In this work, he has combined his light humorous touch with his own illustrations as well. His naive and silly pictures compliment the contents of this clever work admirably. Wear and damage to covers and title slips but the artwork in this ephemeral book is in overall good condition. Few copies found in the Union Catalogue.
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KINSEI KIJIN-DEN

KINSEI KIJIN-DEN

[EHON] Mikuma Katen, artist [EHON] Mikuma Katen, artist. KINSEI KIJIN-DEN, 5 vols. Kyoto, Hishiya Magobei, et al. Kansei 2 [1790]. String-bound Japanese-style fukuro toji, in textured blue-grey covers with printed paper title labels. 37 single page and 2 double page b+w woodcuts, largely depicting the subject matter of the title: TALES OF ECCENTRICS FROM RECENT YEARS. Originally printed, as here, in 1790, this is a deservedly famous and oft-reprinted work in Japan. This is probably a relatively early reprint. It has Wonderful thin paper. The KIJIN_DEN catalogues the eccentricities and eccentrics of the late 18th Century - a time of florescence of the "bunjin" literati ideal in Japan. The bunjin created an esthetically pure environment in the midst of the bustle (and corruption) of everyday life. The initial exemplars were those scholars and artists who withdrew from public life in China after the fall of the Ming Dynasty to the alien Manchus in the mid-17th Century. The KIJIN-DEN represents one of the efforts by the Japanese to domesticate a Chinese cultural import and find native representatives of the literati ideal. It should be noted that this guide came out just as the Kansei Reforms, with a decidedly Confucian, if not authoritarian, bent, had just been promulgated. The "kijin" or literatus might well chafe under such a "reform" agenda. This book even well be seen as a bit of cultural protest on behalf of the individual ideal. The KIJIN-DEN is interesting for its exploration of the art world in Japan- for example, there is a domestic scene of the painters Ikeno Taiga and wife Gyokuran, among others. (Unfortunately, it is the only torn woodcut with part of the image missing) Indeed, there are many women depicted in the KIJIN-DEN. (See JAPANESE WOMEN ARTISTS 1600-1900) Also see Ryerson 416, Mitchell 364, Hillier/Ravicz 22. The condition is good over all, the printings are fair to good. There was a second series done some few years later, but this first series is complete as issued in 5 volumes.
  • $975