Zoge chokokuho [trans.: Technique of Ivory Carving & Sculpture].
Many woodcut illus. in the text. 45; 30 folding leaves. Large 8vo, orig. patterned wrappers, orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers, new stitching. Tokyo: Kinbe Yoshida, 1900.
Second edition, enlarged (the first edition of 1890, privately printed, is very rare), of this classic Japanese work on ivory carving. Kuninosuke Soma, whose pen-name was Senrei Soma, was one of the leading ivory carvers of his time (see Encyc. Brit.). George Frederick Kunz, in his magisterial Ivory and the Elephant in Art, in Archaeology, and in Science (1916), wrote “this new book of Mr. Sen-rei is a brilliant achievement. Students will... More