A superb catalogue from the Yokohama Nursery Company, containing 143 full-page hand-coloured plates of Japanese lilies, irises and maples
[Yokohama, Yokohama Nursery Company, 1892].
Oblong folio (approximately 280 x 390 mm, but all plates are in portrait format), 143 plates (printed rectos only), arranged in three sections: (1) Lilies, numbered 1-38 but lacking number 10, as issued (this plate is skipped in the price list); (2) Irises numbered 1-100; (3) Maples numbered 1-52, but skipping 14 numbers, as issued.
Quarter roan and marbled boards; some wear to the covers (confined mainly to the corners of the boards); childish drawings on the endpapers; a few plates traced over in pencil; paper slightly browned; a few minor creases, small light stains and spots of foxing; short sealed tear to the edge of four plates, with a tiny nick to the edge of 15 consecutive plates; the majority of the plates are in excellent to fine condition.
An attractive and rare Japanese nursery catalogue produced for the export market. The plates comprise 37 of lilies and 100 of irises (each numbered in pencil and illustrating a single flower), and 6 leaves containing 38 illustrations of different varieties of maple leaves. The outlines of the flower illustrations are printed lithographically on Japanese tissue paper (rectos only) and fully hand-coloured in watercolour and gouache; the maple leaves are partially colour-printed. The sections are titled in pencil on blank leaves: 'Paintings of Japanese Lily Bulbs, 1892'; 'Iris (Bulbs), 1/100, March 1892'; and 'Maples, March 1892'. Bound in at the front of the volume is the three-page manuscript price list for the Adelaide shipping agents and merchants Gibbs, Bright and Company (small quarto, 3 pages, written rectos only) which carries an initialled stamp indicating receipt of the catalogue on 23 September 1892. This price list was compiled by the Yokohama offices of Jardine, Matheson & Co., whose company stamp appears here and on the first page of the catalogue, apparently acting as export agents. While the company is nowhere identified in this catalogue, the plates appear to have been issued by the Yokohama Nursery Company. This consortium was formed in the early 1890s for the purpose of exporting Japanese plants, capitalising on the prevailing wave of Japonism in the West.
Item #112986
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