Many finely drawn illustrations in brush, ink, & colors. Scroll (285 x 9310 mm.), 23 joined sheets (some inoffensive worming, carefully repaired). Japan: copied before 1857.

A finely illustrated scroll, created in the witty and refined realistic style of Yamato-e and Ukiyo-e brush work, depicting the route taken — a distance of about 4 km. — by pleasure-seekers from Ryogoku Bridge to Shin Yoshiwara, the center of prostitution in the city of Edo. By the 18th century, it was the home to some 1750 women. This was an extremely busy section with a strong commercial tradition in what is today’s central Tokyo.

Our scroll is an early copy of the original scroll; we do not know if that earlier scroll still exists. It was created by Bunyo Tozaka (1783-1852), a prominent Nanga-style artist who studied with Buncho Tani and specialized in kachoga (pictures of flowers and butterflies). The author of the notes was Hirokata Yashiro (1758-1841), the influential historian of Japan and great book collector (he had more than 50,000 Chinese and Japanese books housed in a series of three buildings in Ueno, known at the Shinobazu Bunko). The beginning of our copied scroll depicts several boats holding men (including samurai) and women making their way along the Sumida River from Ryogoku Bridge to Shin Yoshiwara. They disembark at Kumagatado, adjacent to Asakusa Bridge. From there, the men — clearly samurai — mount rented horses (Daiden Horse Co., with very inadequate saddles) and continue their journey. There are images of high-ranking men with their faces hidden by large hats in order to conceal themselves. Their family crests on their kimono are also hidden. They pass through Raijin Gate (today’s Kaminarimon) which belongs to Tokyo’s oldest temple, Senso-ji. There is a merchant depicted along the side of the road, selling dumplings (the famous Yone manju). Finally, the samurai dismount and board small boats at an embankment to cross some wetlands at the Nihon zutsumi. They arrive at a commercial area called Doromachi (“Mud Town”) where the travellers wash their feet and tidy themselves before entering Shin Yoshiwara and all its pleasures. More

One double-page woodcut illus. & numerous woodcut illus. in the text. 38 folding leaves. Small 8vo, orig. patterned wrappers (wrappers a little waterstained, some worming), orig. block-printed title label on upper cover, new stitching. Edo: Tsutaya Juzaburo, 1783.

First edition and very rare; this work is a guidebook, with poetic and allusory reviews, to the courtesans and brothels of the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter in Edo. This district served “as a kind of cultural salon where samurai and townsman culture could interact, and the quarter was able to transmit this culture to a wider world thanks to burgeoning links with the publishing industry.”–Ryoko Matsuba... More

1 p.l., 199 pp., one leaf. Oblong 8vo, orig. decorated flexible paper boards, stitched as issued, orig. slipcase. Tokyo: Kaizosha, 1931.

First book edition. In this book, written in the Osaka dialect, Tanizaki explored lesbianism, among other themes. This is the first book written by Tanizaki to appear in the more traditional oblong octavo format, a style which he came to prefer.

Very fine copy. More