The Flowers of Japan and the Art of Floral Arrangement

Tokio: Hakubunsha, Ginza, Kelly and Walsh Ltd. et al., 1891. Softcover. Fair only. Front cover gone, spine missing and contents loose due to the glue and fabric along the cloth having deteriorated. Contents clean and bright, corners mostly sharp, light soiling to exposed areas. A very nice reference copy, not for the collector necessarily. Glued thick wraps. Rear cover only present, with colored floral imagery. xii, 152, (1) pp., with 30 colored plates with tissue guards, 54 bw plates and 26 figures printed within the text. Last numbered page is 136, followed by a series of plate pages and then a single sheet with a colophon in Japanese after this. This edition measure 14.25" x 10.5" Text is in English. Two-page Preface by the author. Lovely color plates with rice-paper tissue guards. Sections are sewn together at the spine, but these threads are fragile. Sold as a reading or reference copy only. Includes works by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi and Kawanabe Kiosui, and others. Swann tells us "One of the earliest illustrated works on the art of Japanese Ikebana, or flower arranging. Conder, who served as official architect to the Imperial Japanese Government, published a brief paper on the subject in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan in 1889, prompting this fuller illustrated monograph.