Glorious Morning Glories

MORNING GLORIES ALBUM.

Finely illustrated album, entitled on manuscript label on upper cover “Asagao fu” [“Pictures of Morning Glories”], a collection of 55 highly accomplished & beautifully rendered brush & color-wash paintings of morning glories.

15 folding leaves. 8vo (290 x 2000 mm.), orig. yellow semi-stiff wrappers (wrappers a little soiled), new stitching. [Japan: late Edo].

Morning glories, first brought into Japan by the Chinese, were originally used for medicinal purposes, as a laxative. But soon the Japanese cultivated them as ornamental flowers. During the Edo period, morning glories became very popular and the subject of aesthetic admiration. Much like the “tulip mania” in 17th-century Holland, Japan experienced several morning glory booms in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Japanese horticulturalists have been the leaders in cross-breeding the flowers to develop new varieties.

The anonymous artist who executed the skilled drawings in this album has depicted many varieties of the morning glory flower in great detail, painted in rich colors. The artist has labelled each flower with its name (and alternate names) and a brief description. The artist has frequently used ground-shell white pigment to give the paintings a three-dimensional quality.

Fine and fresh copy, preserved in an old chitsu. Minor marginal worming. With several ownership seals. One of them is that of Manabu Miyoshi (1861-1931), who earned his doctorate in botany at the University of Leipzig, and returned to Japan to become professor of that subject at the University of Tokyo. Another seal is that of Kanesaburo Wakai (d. 1908), a prominent dealer in Japanese antiquities and art.

Price: $9,500.00

Item ID: 8848