Sekai Kokumei-zukushi [Compendium of the Countries of the World]

US$580.00

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Sekai Kokumei-zukushi [Compendium of the Countries of the World]

[Illustrator unidentified].

[Edo (Tōkyō): Fujiokaya Keijirō, ca. 1844-1856].

An apparently unrecorded colour woodblock print depicting a series of vignettes representing foreign countries. Curiosity about the wider world increased during the closing decades of the Edo period as Japan experienced growing contact with foreign nations, and prints such as the present work sought to satisfy this appetite for geographical knowledge. The countries depicted (left to right, top to bottom) are Persia, China, Japan, Arabia, India, Siberia, Siam, Afghanistan, and Georgia. Each vignette is accompanied by a caption giving the country's name, form of government (empire, kingdom, etc.), geographical extent, and population. The illustrations combine geographical information with imaginative visualisation. Traditional costume, architecture, means of transport, and local fauna are all represented, although not always with geographical accuracy: a camel accompanies the vignette of Georgia, while what appear to be two reindeer are shown in the scene for Siam. An inscription in the upper right reads "Asia: Fourteen Countries", with a small kanji number "one" beside it. No institutional or bibliographic record of this print has been located, and it therefore remains unclear whether it originally formed part of a larger series depicting the remaining countries of Asia. Both this work and the well-known geography textbook Sekai Kokumei-zukushi (1871), itself adapted from Cornell's Grammar-School Geography, were issued by the publisher Fujiokaya Keijirō. A colourful production that offers a fascinating glimpse of late Edo-period conceptions of the wider world.

One ōban leaf, woodblock-printed on one side. A few minor marks, light wear. Three small washi mounting papers affixed to verso. 36.7 x 25.7 cm.

Sekai Kokumei-zukushi [Compendium of the Countries of the World]
Price: $580.00 (USD)