• Artist: Utagawa Kunisada [歌川 国貞] a.k.a. Utagawa Toyokuni III [三代歌川豊国] (Japanese, 1786 – 1865). Block cutter: Yokokawa Takejirō [横川竹二郎] (Japanese, fl. 1845 – 1863), seal Hori Take [彫竹]. Publisher: Ibaya Senzaburō [伊場屋仙三郎] (Japanese, fl. C. 1845 – 1847). Title: Book of an incoming ship [入船帳] (Irifune-chō). Series: Comparison of Eight Books of Proficiency and Eloquence [口も手も美立八帳] (Kuchimo temo mitate hatchō). Date seal and aratame censor seal: 1856 (Ansei 3). Signed: Toyokuni ga in toshidama cartouche. Media: Untrimmed fan print (uchiwa-e), 231 x 300 mm. Provenance: The Collection of Paul F. Walter, Christie's, New York, 2017, lot 341; sold together with 5 other fan prints for $25,000. Before: Israel Goldman, Japanese Prints, Catalogue 11, 2005, no. 37. Ref: [LIB-1693.2018] The Collection of Paul Walter. — NY: Christie's, 2017, p. 363. Ref: Israel Goldman, Catalogue 2018, № 51: "Utagawa Kunisada (1786-1865) A Beauty Seated in a Boat. From the series Mitate hatcho (A Parody of Eight Books). 1856. Fan print. 23.3 x 30 cm. Provenance: Israel Goldman, Japanese Prints, Catalogue 11, 2005, no. 37, The Collection of Paul F. Walter, Christie's, New York, 2017, lot 341. Fine impression, colour and condition. The title contains the saying: “Kuchi mo hatcho te mo hatcho (As quick with one’s hand as one’s tongue)." Special thanks to Horst Graebner for the detailed description.
  • Artist: Utagawa Kunisada [歌川 国貞] a.k.a. Utagawa Toyokuni III [三代歌川豊国] (Japanese, 1786 – 1865). Signed: Toyokuni ga [豊国 画] in a red toshidama cartouche. Publisher: Ibaya Senzaburō [伊場屋仙三郎] (Japanese, c. 1815 – 1869). Block carver: Yokokawa Takejirō [横川竹二郎] (Japanese, fl. 1845 – 1863); seal Hori Take [彫竹]. Double nanushi censor seals: Mera & Murata (1847-50). Title: Cool Breeze on Tenpōzan Hill in Naniwa [浪花天保山の涼] (Naniwa Tenpōzan no ryō). An uncut fan print (uchiwa-e), depicting a gentleman (most probably kabuki actor Nakamura Utaemon IV) holding a pipe with the view of Tenpōzan Hill [天保山] in Naniwa (Osaka) in the background. A distinctive structure on the left is the Sumiyoshi Lantern [住吉高灯篭] (Sumiyoshi takadōrō), which was destroyed by a typhoon in 1950. The character 翫 – moteasobu – on the gentleman’s robe means "take pleasure, play an instrument". Nakamura Utaemon IV [中村歌右衛門] (Japanese, 1796 – 1852); other names: Nakamura Shikan II, Nakamura Tsurusuke I, Nakamura Tōtarō. The character is visually similar to a gentleman drinking tea on a veranda under the shining moon from the series ‘Moon, Sun, Stars’ [月日星] (Getsu hi hoshi), see SVJP-0211-1.2016: The Moon. Utagawa Kunisada. Fan print triptych. Jitsu getsu sei no uchi. Moon. Circa 1850. As noted by Horst Graebner, the gentleman also resembles the character on another Kunisada's actor print, published in 1852 (Waseda University Cultural Resources Database № 114-0232):    
  • Artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi [歌川 國芳] (Japanese, 1798 – 1861) Publisher: British Museum provides for the title as Enkyoku-zoroi [艶曲揃] (Set of Voluptuous Melodies) and the publisher as Sanpei. Indeed, 三平 (Sanpei) was a wholesale fan shop at the end of the Edo period. However, Andreas Marks identifies the publisher’s seal as 三平 Mihei = Mikawaya Heiroku (1848-56), a member of the Fan Producing Guild (AM 11-016|325a). Block carver: Hori Take [彫竹]

    Signed: Ichiyosai Kuniyoshi ga in a red cartouche and sealed with paulownia (kiri mon).

    Date seal and double nanushi censor seals: Fuku & Muramatsu, 1853 (Kaei 6, 2nd month).

    Size: Uchiwa-e (untrimmed fan print) 229 x 294 mm.

    Provenance: The Collection of Paul F. Walter, Christie's, New York, 2017, lot 338; sold together with 10 other fan prints for $27,500. Before: Christie's, New York, 1994, lot 145 ($4,830). Ref: [LIB-1693.2018] The Collection of Paul Walter. — NY: Christie's, 2017, p. 361. Ref: Israel Goldman, Catalogue 2018, № 41: "Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861) A Woman on a Terrace Dancing with a Fan. From the series Enkyoku zoroi (Collection of Charming Music). 1853. Fan print. 22.9 x 29.4 cm. Provenance: Japanese Prints, Paintings and Screens, Christie's, New York, 1994, lot 145 ($4,830); The Collection of Paul F. Walter, Christie's, New York, 2017, lot 338. Fine impress." Known prints in this series:

    SVJP-0251.2018

     
  • Artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi [歌川 國芳] (Japanese, 1798 – 1861). Publisher: Izuzen (fl. c. 1800s – 1840s) (Marks 06-029|U103b). Signed: Ichiyosai Kuniyoshi ga in a red cartouche and sealed with paulownia crest (kiri mon). Double nanushi censor seals: Fuku & Muramatsu, 1849-51 (Kaei 2 – Kaei 4). Young woman in front of the western-style framed portrait of Soga Tokimune, who is depicted after having his kusazuri ripped off by Asahina Saburō. The series of fan prints A Collection of Pictures in Modern Style [今様額面合] (Imayô gakumen awase) can be found at Kuniyoshi Project. Soga Tokimune, a.k.a. Soga no Gorō [曾我時致] (Japanese, 1174 – 1193), a historical figure and a character of an epic tale Soga Monogatari [曽我物語] (A Tale of Soga Brothers). Asahina Saburō [朝比奈 三朗], a.k.a. Asahina Yoshihide [朝比奈 義秀] is also mentioned in the Soga Monogatari. Kusazuri [草摺] (くさずり) – tassets on a suit of a samurai's armour. Another Kuniyoshi's print with the same characters: Goro Tokimune and Asahina Saburo; Series: The Tale of Soga Brothers; Publisher: Ibaya Senzaburō; Date: 1843-1845; Size: Vertical Ōban: 359 x 245 mm.
  • Utagawa Toyokuni I (歌川豐國); 1769 – 24 February 1825. Kabuki actor Onoe Matsusuke I (other stage names: Onoe Shôroku I and  Onoe Tokuzô) lived from 1744 (born in Edo, present Tokyo) until the 16th day of the 10th lunar month of 1815 (died in Edo). Here he plays the honourable villain, the powerful minister of state Kudō Saemon Suketsune. Kabuki actor Bandô Hikosaburô III (other stage names: Ichimura Kichigorô I, other names: Hansôan Rakuzen, Bandô Shinsui III, and Rakuzenbô) lived from 1754 (born in Edo, present Tokyo) until 18th day of the 2nd lunar month of 1828. "1813 ~ 1828: Hikosaburô retires and takes the tonsure in a Temple located in Kurodani (Kyôto). He goes back to Edo and lives a hermit life in a small hut called Hansôan and located in Mukôjima." Here he plays Soga no Gorō Tokimune, the younger of two Soga brothers. It was an Edo period custom to produce every New Year's a play in which the Soga brothers figured. The Sogas were actual historical figures who, in 1193, avenged their father's murder by staging a daring night raid on their enemy during a grand hunt. The villain, a powerful minister of state named Kudō Saemon Suketsune, had orchestrated the murder of their father seventeen years earlier. The exact play,  theater, and year featured on the print are not currently known. Publisher: AM-23-016 |391q: Nishimuraya Yohachi: Eiju han 1780s-1809 [AM: Andreas Marks. Publishers of Japanese woodblock prints: A compendium. Hotei Publishing, Leiden-Boston, 2011]. References:
    1. Kabuki Plays on Stage: Brilliance and Bravado, 1697-1766 (Kabuki Plays on Stage, Volume 1). Brandon, James R., Leiter, Samuel L. University of Hawai'I Press, Honolulu, 2002.
    2. Kabuki Encyclopedia. An English-Langauge Adaptation of Kabuki Jiten. Samuel L. Leiter. Greenwood Press, 1979.
    3. https://www.kabuki21.com/
  • Artist: Utagawa Yoshitsuya [歌川 芳艶] (Japanese, 1822 – 1866). Publisher: Kojimaya Jūbei [小島屋重兵衛] (Japanese, c. 1797 – 1869). Date seal and double nanushi censor seals: Kunigasa & Yoshimura, Kōka 5 (1849). Signed: Ichieisai Yoshitsuya ga [英斎芳艶画] in a red double gourd cartouche. Two men are fishing with a net off the coast of Shinagawa, in the Edo Bay.
  • Paperback, 21.5 x 13.6 cm, red and white original wrappers with black lettering, barcode label to front, previous owner’s black ink ms to h.t. Rene Shekerjian; pp.: [i-vii] viii-xxvi[1-3] 4-158 (total 184 pp.). Title-page: Morphology | of the | Folktale | by | V. Propp | First Edition Translated by Lawrence Scott with an Introduction by Svatava Pirkova-Jacobson | Second Edition Revised and Edited with a Preface by Louis A. Warner/New Introduction by Alan Dundes | University of Texas Press • Austin and London || Serial title: American Folklore Society Bibliographical and Special Series | Volume 9/Revised Edition/1968 | [blank] Indiana University Research Center in Anthropology, Folklore, | and Linguistics | Publication 10/Revised Edition/1968 || Edition: 7th paperback printing. Contributors: Владимир Яковлевич Пропп [Vladimir Propp] (Russian, 1895 – 1970) For other editions, see [LIB-1710.2019] В. Я. Пропп. Исторические корни волшебной сказки (2-е изд.) — Л.: Изд-во ЛГУ, 1986; [LIB-3184.2023] В. Я. Пропп. Исторические корни волшебной сказки (1-е изд.) — Л.: Изд-во Ленинградского ун-та, 1946, and [LIB-1718.2019] В. Я. Пропп. Морфология сказки / Серия: Вопросы поэтики, вып. XII. — Л.: Academia, 1928.  
  • Wood netsuke of Seiōbo with a basket of immortal peaches, seated on a bed of clouds.  Carver's signature tablet lost. Circa 1850. Dimensions: 32.6 x 28.1 x 20.1 mm.

    Queen Mother of the West is a calque of Xiwangmu in Chinese sources, Seiōbo in Japan. Peaches of Immortality (Chinese: 仙桃) are consumed by the immortals due to their mystic virtue of conferring longevity on all who eat them.

    Provenance: Charles Ephrussi (1849-1905) acquired in the 1870s; a wedding gift in 1898 to his cousin Ritter Viktor von Ephrussi (1860-1945) and Baroness Emilie (Emmy) Schey von Koromla (1879-1938); retrieved post-war by their daughter Elizabeth de Waal (1899-1991); given by her to her brother Ignaz (Iggie) Ephrussi (1906-1994), Tokyo; bequeathed by him to his great-nephew Edmund de Waal (born 1964), London, author of “The Hare with Amber Eyes: a hidden inheritance”. London / New York: Chatto & Windus / Farrar, Straus & Giroux. ISBN 978-0099539551. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ephrussihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephrussi_familyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_de_Waal.
  • Iron tsuba of round form decorated with eight roundels – circular emblems of flowers and/or family crests (mon) made of cast brass, pierced and chiseled in kebori, and with flat brass inlay (hira-zōgan) of vines or leaves all over the plate. Both hitsu-ana could have been trimmed with brass now lacking. Nakago-ana of triangular form, possibly enlarged, with copper sekigane. All typical emblems with bellflower, two variations on suhama theme, and 3, 4, 5, and 6-poinitng mon variations. A distinctive character of this tsuba is a mon at 12 hours depicting water plantain (omodaka).

    “Omodaka was also called shōgunsō (victorious army grass); because of this martial connotation, it was a design favored for the crests of samurai families” [Family crests of Japan, Stone Bridge Press, Berkeley, California]. Yoshirō school (Kaga-Yoshirō). The Momoyama or early Edo period, beginning of 17th century. Size: Height: 81.4 mm; width: 81.2; thickness 3.8 mm at seppa-dai.
  • Iron tsuba of round form decorated with eight roundels – circular emblems of flowers and/or family crests (mon) made of cast brass, pierced and chiselled in kebori, and with flat brass inlay (hira-zōgan) of vines or leaves all over the plate. Both hitsu-ana trimmed with brass. Nakago-ana of trapezoidal form. A distinctive character of this tsuba is a mon at 6 hours depicting tomoe (comma). Yoshirō school (Kaga-Yoshirō). Attributed to Koike Yoshirō Naomasa himself. Unsigned. The Momoyama or early Edo period, end of the 16th to the first half of the 17th century (1574-1650). Size: Diameter 82.0 mm, thickness 3.8 mm at seppa-dai, 3.4 mm at rim.
  • Title: В. Я. АДАРЮКОВЪ. | ДОБАВЛЕНIЯ И ИСПРАВЛЕНIЯ КЪ ПОДРОБНОМУ СЛОВАРЮ | РУССКИХЪ | ГРАВИРОВАННЫХЪ ПОРТРЕТОВЪ Д. А. РОВИНСКАГО | СПБ. 1889 г. | ИЗДАНИЕ ЖУРНАЛА «СТАРЫЕ ГОДЫ» | 1911. Pagination: [1-4] – incl. orig. wrappers with engraved vignette, 5-89 [90 blank], illustr. Size: 27 x 18.7 cm. Binding: Hardcover; owner's half brown buckram over cloth, original wrappers bound in. Printed on laid paper. Edition: 1st edition, limited: №91 of 150. Inscription to t.p.: Крамарев, 27.5.39. Errata inserts on p. 29 and 77
  • Hardcover, 22.2 x 14.6 cm, quarter black cloth, pictorial boards, lettering to spine; pp.: [2] 3-253 [3], collated 8vo: 1-168, total 128 leaves plus portrait frontispiece. Title-page: Дж. Д. СЭЛИНДЖЕР | ПОВЕСТИ | НАД ПРОПАСТЬЮ | ВО РЖИ | ВЫШЕ СТРОПИЛА, | ПЛОТНИКИ | РАССКАЗЫ | ХОРОШО ЛОВИТСЯ | РЫБКА-БАНАНКА | ЧЕЛОВЕК, КОТОРЫЙ | СМЕЯЛСЯ | ГОЛУБОЙ ПЕРИОД | ДЕ ДОМЬЕ-СМИТА | ЛАПА-РАСТЯПА | ПЕРЕВОД С АНГЛИЙСКОГО | И ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ | Р. РАЙТ-КОВАЛЕВОЙ | ИЗДАТЕЛЬСТВО ЦК ВЛКСМ | «МОЛОДАЯ ГВАРДИЯ», 1965 || T.p. verso: […] J. D. Salinger | The Catcher in the Rye | Raise high the Roof Beam, Carpenters | A Perfect Day for Bananafish | The Laughing Man | De Daumier — Smith’s Blue Period | Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut | Художник Б. Жутовский | (В оформлении использован фрагмент картины | американского художника Э. Уайеса) || Print run: 115,000 copies. Contributors: [Джером Дэвид Сэлинджер] Jerome David Salinger (American, 1919 – 2010) Райт-Ковалёва, Рита [Черномордик, Раиса Яковлевна] (Russian, 1898 – 1988) Жутовский, Борис Иосифович (Russian, 1932 – 2023) «Э. Уайес» – [Эндрю Уайет] Andrew Wyeth (American, 1917 – 2009)  
  • Title: ИЗБРАННЫЕ | СКАЗКИ | БРАТЬЕВ ГРИММ | Перевод | Григория Петникова | {device} | ACADEMIA | Москва—Ленинград | 1937 || Title verso: Kinder- und Hausmärchen | gesammelt durch die | Brüder Grimm | иллюстрации с рисунков Ракхама 1900 г. | Переплет, контр-титул, фронтиспис, заставка и концовка А. Д. Силина. Pagination: [1-4] 5-634 [2] ; b/w illustrations in text, 2 colour plates. Collation: 8vo; [1]8 2-398 406. Print run: 15,300 copies. Binding: publisher’s blue cloth stamped with lettering and elements of design to cover and spine, pictorial endleaves. Петников, Григорий Николаевич (Russian, 1894 – 1971) Силин, Александр Дмитриевич (Russian, 1883 – 1942)
  • С. Маршак. Почта военная. Детиздат : Ленинград, 1947.

    Hard-bound Quatro (304 x 246 mm) printed in lithography with hand-colored details on cover.

    The name of artist hardly legible on a stamp on frontispiece: скворцов.

    The text repeats itself on multiple pages. Most probably the book is a pilot run, never went to mass printing and distribution.
  • Title: Ю. И. МАСАНОВ | В МИРЕ | ПСЕВДОНИМОВ, | АНОНИМОВ | И ЛИТЕРАТУРНЫХ | ПОДДЕЛОК | Под редакцией и со вступительной статьей | П. Н. БЕРКОВА | ИЗДАТЕЛЬСТВО ВСЕСОЮЗНОЙ КНИЖНОЙ ПАЛАТЫ | МОСКВА • 1963 || Frontispiece: ИСТОРИКО- | ЛИТЕРАТУРНЫЕ | И | БИОГРАФИЧЕСКИЕ | ОЧЕРКИ Pagination: [1-6] 7-318 [2], errata slip; 15 leaves of plates. Collation: 8vo; [1]8 2-208. Binding: 22.0 x 18 cm, hardcover; publisher's tan cloth, gilt arabesque to front board, brown labels with gilt lettering to spine; pictorial DJ. Масанов, Юрий Иванович (Russian, 1911 – 1965). Берков, Павел Наумович (Russian, (1896 – 1969).