SO^KEN GAFU So^ka no Bu
1806. Item #87495
[EHON] Yamaguchi SOKEN. SOKEN GAFU Soka no Bu. 3 volumes, complete. Dark grey (replaced) covers with original printed title labels. String-bound Japanese-style, fukuro-toji. 25.8 x 17.7 cm. Kyoto: Bunka 3 [1806] Illustrated in b+w and grey woodcut throughout. This is perhaps Soken's most successful ehon - illustrating a series of plants and grasses quite wonderfully. There is much use of block scraping to produce wonderful printing effects, especially on leaves and stems. The difficulty of the printing techniques means that this book always hovers on the edge of aesthetic disaster - when it is good it is very good, when it doesn't work it dissolves into pictorial chaos. Ours is very good. As for bibliographic details, our colophon is identical to the Mitchell, etc. copies [Mitchell 498-9], save that in this one the ads on the inside back cover are gone. Good (slightly later) impressions. In good condition overall, the slight worming has been expertly mended. A nice copy of a very scarce and important book. Complete.
Price: $2,500.00