Lot 14
10 volumes, folio (398 x 295 mm). 10 color collotype frontispieces of flowers by Kazumasa Ogawa, 30 hand-colored albumen photographs by Tamamura Kozaburo mounted with printed tissue guards, numerous halftone photographic illustrations. (Slight toning and soiling, some occasional spotting, short tears to a few leaves.) Original silk printed in color and gilt over beveled boards in varying Japanese-inspired motifs, paper labels printed in gold to upper covers, original stab-sewing, uncut and unopened (sunning to spines and extremities, some slight fraying, minor soiling).
LIMITED EDITION, number 32 of 1000 sets of the “Yedo edition,” describing Japanese history with chapters regarding architecture, cities, festivals, religion, and Japan's relationship with the rest of the world. Tamamura Kozaburo's photographic efforts were monumental. He exported "40,000 photographs of various sizes to the Boston publishing house J. B. Millet. These were required for insertion in the work Japan.... But this was only the first instalment [sic] of what turned out to be an enormous order for more than one million(!) hand-colored albumen photographs. Tamamura used over 350 assistants over several months to help with the printing and coloring" (Bennett, Photography in Japan 1853-1912, p. 202).