Page 64 - Bonhams Chinese Scholar's Art March 2014

8103 8103
Two Early Publications on Chinese
8104 Imperial Architecture
62 | Bonhams Tokyo, 1906
The first entitled Shinkoku Pekin kojo
shashincho Photographs of Palace Buildings of
Peking, compiled by the Imperial museum of
Tokyo, collotyped from the negatives taken by
K. Ogawa, F. R. P. S., with explanatory notes
in Japanese by C. Ito. English by T. Tomiogi.
Chinese by A. Aoyagi published Tokyo, K.
Ogawa, 1906, no. 256 from the limited edition
of 500 in 2 folding cases, originally containing
172 plates (23 plates missing in this copy); the
second, by Okuyama, Tsunegoro, Pekin kojo
kenchiku soshoku: fuzu hachijuyo The Imperial
City, Peking, China . Tokyo: Ogawa Kazumasa
Shuppanbu, 1906, from the limited edition of
1000 copies, a single folding case containing
text and originally 80 illustrations (one plate
missing). [3]
19in (48cm) each volume
$4,000 - 6,000

清國北京皇城寫眞帖
北京皇城建築裝飾 : 附圖八十葉

Provenance:
Private California collection

Ogawa Kazumasa (1860-1929), the
photographer for the stunning images in both
these collections, is an important figure in
the history of Japanese photography. Having
studied the dry plate printing process while in
Philadelphia and Boston 1883-1884, Ogawa
returned to Japan to produce a number of
illustrated books on Japanese life and culture.
Traveling to China with Professor Chuta Ito and
the Imperial University of Tokyo, Ogawa would
document the architecture and decoration of
the Forbidden City and nearby temples in the
waning years of the Qing.

8104
Three Early Volumes on Chinese Furniture
1920s
Including, Odilon Roche, Les meubles de la
Chine: planches accompagnées d’une préface
et d’une table descriptive Paris: Librairie des
arts décoratifs, 1921-1926, 2 vol, each with
54 plates, loose as published; together with
Herbert Cescinsky Chinese Furniture: A Series of
Examples from Collections in France, London:
Benn Bros, 1922, 54 plates. [3]
13in (33cm), each volume
$3,000 - 5,000

Provenance:
Ex. Collection Rudolph Schaeffer, by inscription

It is very unusual to find the 1921 and 1926
series of the Odilon Roche books together as a
set. The 1922 Cescinsky volume reproduces the
54 plates in the 1921 Roche at the same quality
in addition to a 32 page English introduction.