ISONO BUNSAI (BUNSAI MADAKI).
Nagasaki miyage [= Souvenir of Nagasaki].
Nagasaki, Yamato-ya Yoshihei juo, Koka 4 [= 1847]. 23 x 15.5 cm. Text and illustrations printed from 42 woodblocks, probably on kozo (mulberry bark) paper (vertical chainlines about 34 mm apart), with an astrological figure and constellation on the title-page (the Mao Xiu lunar mansion?), 12 double-page and 6 full-page illustrations (a few with Dutch titles as well as Japanese) including a map of Nagasaki harbour (showing the Dutch and Chinese trading factories and three ships), two Chinese merchants at a table in the factory library while their servant unpacks a chest of books, a bedroom with a VOC captain(?) and merchant(?), the latter with his pocket watch and Indonesian servant, a cluster of Japanese ships making a dense forest of masts, a landscape with dozens of kites, another with many people on a bridge over a river, a Dutch VOC ship in great detail, a VOC merchant at dinner with an Indonesian servant and two Japanese geishas, a Dutch woman, an elephant, festivals (one with a dragon and drums), and other landscapes, city views, etc. The texts show a wide variety of writing styles (kaisho, gysho and sosho) with the blocks for many texts (and one illustration) including seals of authors or artists, mostly in tensho (seal characters). Original publishers blue paper wrappers in the traditional Japanese fukurotoji manner, publishers manuscript title-label on front wrapper. [1], 40, [1] double ll.
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