Printed on one side. Oblong card. New York: John Weber Gallery, [1979].
Card announcement for Haacke’s 1979 show with John Weber. Fine. More
Printed on one side. Postcard. New York: John Weber Gallery, [1977].
Postcard invitation to Haacke’s 1977 show with John Weber. Fine. More
[12] leaves. 4to (219 x 180 mm.), printed wrappers, staple-bound. London: Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1977.
Scarce Stanley Brouwn (1935-2017) exhibition catalogue/artist’s book published for his solo exhibition at Whitechapel; edition of 1000 copies and printed by Westerham Press. The measurements in the catalogue fluctuate between “1000 mm + 876 mm” and “1000 mm + 884 mm.”
Near fine.
❧ Harry Ruhé, ed., stanley brouwn: a chronology (2nd ed.: 2005). More
20 folding leaves. Small 4to (207 x 188 mm.), orig. semi-stiff wrappers (wrappers somewhat soiled & marked). [Korea: 18th or 19th century].
This manuscript contains biographies of six Chosŏn officials involved in a failed plot to intervene in the royal succession by regicide.
That candle burns indoors,
to whom has it bidden farewell?
While its outside drips with tears,
does it not know that its heart burns?
I also, my King left a thousand leagues back,
I burn inside and I weep.
Thus reads, in Richard Rutt’s translation, a poem by Yi Kae (1417-56), one of the “Six... More
![Item ID: 8831 Seken johari kagami [or] Johari kagami [Mirror of Past Existences]. Issho YOKOTE](/pictures/medium/8831.jpg?v=1677582760)
Six double-page woodcuts. 22.5; 21.5; 25.5 folding leaves. Three vols. 8vo, orig. semi-stiff wrappers (rather tired), orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers (one label quite rubbed & defective), new stitching. From the colophon: Edo et al.: Suharaya Mohei, 1768.
First edition of this rare ukiyozoshi [“books of the floating world”], a type of prose story popular in the 18th century, intensely realistic and usually involving ordinary townspeople. We find no copy of this book in WorldCat.
This collection of 21 witty stories, full of puns and double-meanings, is based on the famous Chinese mythological story of the Yama King... More
Mito [in today’s Ibaraki Prefecture]: Hasegawa Yasutaro, 1875.
The complete set of woodblocks for the textbook Nagashiraji [A Collection of the First Kanji in Peoples’ Names], by Ryotan Maki (1846-86), printed and published in the provincial city of Mito in 1875. Maki, a bakumatsu educator in the Edo and Meiji eras, was the author of many textbooks on education for women and merchants. He also wrote aids for teaching basic literacy to rural populations, including the present work. It gives instruction on how to read the most common personal names and the names of the famous families of Japan.
It... More
![Item ID: 8829 Nagasaki mujin [or mushin] monogatari [A Tale of the Nagasaki Mujin]. Seiei NAKAMURA](/pictures/medium/8829.jpg?v=1677582687)
Two double-page & three full-page woodcuts. 14.5 folding leaves (pagination irregular but complete). 8vo, orig. patterned orange wrappers (a little soiled & rubbed), orig. block-printed title label on upper cover, new stitching. Ushu [in today’s Yamagata Prefecture],
Naraya Ichibei, 1691.
First edition of this very rare work on practical business mathematics and the use of the abacus by the wasan scholar, Nakamura Seiei (d. 1734). There is no copy of the first edition in WorldCat, which lists only the reprints of 1926 and 1935.
The Mujin (or tanomoshi), a sort of rotating savings and credit cooperative association, has existed... More
![Item ID: 8828 Chikufu shoroku [C.: Zhupu xiang lu; Detailed Treatise on Bamboo Painting]. Kan LI](/pictures/medium/8828.jpg?v=1677582616)
66 full-page woodcuts & a few woodcuts in the text. 37; 22 folding leaves. Two vols. 8vo, orig. pale blue semi-stiff patterned wrappers, new stitching, orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers (one label quite defective). From the colophon in Vol. II: Kyoto: Hayashi Ihei, 1756.
First Japanese edition of this classic painting book. Zhupu xiang lu was regarded as the medium’s major canon for the first half of the 14th century. No early Chinese edition has survived.
“Not all manuals were mediocre, however. In 1756 the Japanese edition of a bamboo manual by the Yuan master Li Kan, [the... More
![Item ID: 8827 Amanogawa soshi [or Gingazoshi, but this is wrong] [Book of the Milky Way]. Tori...](/pictures/medium/8827.jpg?v=1677582557)
Ten double-page & two single-page woodblock color-printed illus.; two-page preface & colophon with color-printed borders, & several leaves with color-printed backgrounds. 14; 13; 11.5 folding leaves. Three vols. 8vo, orig. patterned semi-stiff wrappers, orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers (all three a little defective), new stitching. From the colophon: Kyoto et al.: carved by Inoue Jihei for Daimonjiya Tokugoro, 1835.
First edition of this beautifully illustrated introduction to the story and customs of the Tanabata Festival, today celebrated on July 7th. The Tanabata Festival traces its origins to the Chinese Qixi Festival and marks the meeting of the deities... More
Brush & ink, all heightened in colors of yellow, red, beige, darker brown, & black. Orihon (accordion format), 260 x ca. 12,000 mm., 20th-cent. silk brocade over boards. [Japan, perhaps Kyoto]: from the note on the front paste-down (in trans.): ”ca. 1679.”
The Tokaido road, the most important of the “Five Routes” constructed under Tokugawa Ieyasu in the early 17th century, was the main travel and transport artery of old Japan, linking Edo and Kyoto. It has been most famously memorialized in Hiroshige’s famous series of prints created after he travelled the route in 1832.
This map was prepared in... More
[Korea]: mid- to late Chosŏn era.
A remarkable survival: this is a substantial part of a Korean Chosŏn-era census register, known as hojŏk (“household registry”). It is written in classical Chinese. These registers were maintained by the Chosŏn government for the purpose of levying taxes and corvée (labor exacted in lieu of taxes by public authorities). The registries were divided according to the administrative divisions of counties and provinces and updated every three years. Our register starts with what ought to be the first t’ong, meaning the first unit of five to ten households. However, there is no heading. The... More
Printed on one side. Large card. Torino: Galleria Sperone, 1970.
Card announcement for Darboven’s first show in Italy, with Gian Enzo Sperone. The recto has a facsimile of a drawing by the artist. Very good copy; minor foxing.
❧ A. Minola, M.C. Mundici, F. Poli, M.T. Roberto, eds., Gian Enzo Sperone: Torino, Roma, New York: 35 Anni di Mostre tra Europa e America (2000), Vol. I, p. 176 (pictured) & Vol. II, p. 492. More
Printed on both sides. Card. Villeurbanne: Institut d'art contemporain, 2012.
Announcement card for a brouwn (1935-2017) museum exhibition that never occurred. The artist withdrew weeks before the vernissage. Fine. More
Printed on both sides. Postcard. Antwerp: Galerie Micheline Szwajcer, 2008.
Postcard invitation to Brouwn’s 2008 show with Szwajcer. Fine. More
Printed on both sides. Card. Milan: [2012].
Announcement card for Wilson’s 2012 discussion at the Villa Reale in Milan, in collaboration with Galleria Massimo Minini. Fine. More
Printed on both sides. Card. Brussels: Jan Mot; Brescia: Galleria Massimo Minini, 2010.
Announcement card for Wilson’s discussion at Art Basel in 2010, co-organized by Jan Mot and Massimo Minini. Fine. More
Printed on one side. Card. Brescia: Galleria Massimo Minini, 2009.
Announcement card for Wilson’s 2009 discussion at Massimo Minini’s gallery in Brescia. Fine. More
Printed on both sides. Postcard. Eindhoven: 1985.
Postcard invitation to Wilson’s 1985 discussion at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. With an excerpt from the artist’s unique book Section 36 (1984) on the recto: “That which is unknown is not unknown…”
Fine.
❧ Ian Wilson: The Discussions (2008), p. 132. More
Single black & white illus. [4] pp. Single folded A3 sheet. Amsterdam: Art & Project, 1972.
A mailed example of Salvo’s second bulletin, in fine condition. It functioned as an announcement for presentations of the artist’s work at both the Cologne Art Fair (3-8 October) and the Art & Project gallery in Amsterdam (10-21 October).
Fine, addressed to museum curator Ad Petersen (1931-2021).
❧ Art & Project Bulletins 1-156, September 1968-November 1989 (2011). More
Full-bleed black & white illus. [4] pp. Single folded A3 sheet. Amsterdam: Art & Project, 1970.
The first Art & Project bulletin designed by Ger van Elk (1941-2014). The two-page opening and final page bear full-bleed stills from the video of the artist’s droll attempt to inflate one foot with the other. This 16 mm. film piece was presented at Art & Project’s gallery for his exhibition.
An early Art & Project bulletin, in fine condition. Edition of ca. 800 copies.
❧ Art & Project Bulletins 1-156, September 1968-November 1989 (2011). More
96 pp. Small 8vo, orig. blue-gray printed wrappers (minor foxing). Voghera: dalla Tipografia Sormani, 1828.
First edition of this rare account of the famous Jacquet-Droz automata — life-like automaton dolls known as the Writer, the Lady Musician, and the Draftsman — which were at that time on tour in northern Italy. These automatons were important precursors of the robots and computers of today, machines designed to perform repetitive functions.
Pierre Jacquet-Droz (1721-90), was a Swiss watchmaker who became interested in automaton mechanisms because of their technical difficulties. By the 1750s, he had abandoned watchmaking and begun to concentrate on the... More
Eight vols. 8vo, later wrappers, orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers, new stitching, heads & tails of spines covered in blue silk (a few worn). [China]: Preface dated 1758.
A commentary, nominally by the Qianlong emperor (1711-99, reigned 1735-96), of the Spring and Autumn Annals, one of the Confucian classics. The commentary rejects a previously current interpretation of the Annals in favor of a reading favorable to the Manchu monarchy.
The Spring and Autumn Annals is a very terse and apparently entirely documentary account of events involving the state of Lu in Chinese antiquity. It covers the period 722-481... More
Scroll (263 x 2490 mm.), the six paintings mounted on scroll paper & framed with fine brown silk brocade, inside front endpaper with patterned white paper, outside covered with blue silk brocade, wooden core roller. [Japan]: late-Edo.
A handsomely illustrated scroll, with images and notes very much in the conventions of traditional Chinese medicine. The quality and accuracy of the paintings is very fine. Several of the images show the all-important pairings (kuiawase) of foods that, in combination, were good for health.
The first image depicts an unidentified fish with orange skin. The notes state that eating this fish causes... More
![Item ID: 8809 [J:] Shoroku tanshun [Thought-Provoking Bookworms in the Bamboo Trunk Full of...](/pictures/medium/8809.jpg?v=1678895964)
42; 32 folding leaves. Two vols. 8vo, orig. semi-stiff wrappers (rubbed), orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers (both labels partly defective), new stitching. Kyoto: Takemura Shinbei, 1698.
First edition to be printed in Japan of this collection of Chinese literary texts, with the Preface of Isshiki Tokei (or Maeda Tokei, 1673-1744), the Kyoto Confucian scholar who served the Yamashiro yodo fiefdom lord Noriyuki Ishikawa. The book is printed in kanbun with reading marks. It is rare, with no copy in WorldCat (we did find a copy in the Nagoya Tsurumai Library).
The texts are:
1. LI Jiweng (or Kuangyi)... More