Beschreibung:

Souvenir of Japan Julius Bien c.1860 JAPAN – Souvenir of Japan (cover title). New York: Julius Bien c.1860. Excessively rare collection of American color images of Japanese figures and scenes. The plates bear the address of 180 Broadway, where Julius Bien worked from only 1860 to 1862. The project was almost certainly undertaken in 1860 or early 1861, following relatively closely on the heels of Commodore Perry’s expedition to Japan but before the outbreak of the Civil War when Americans’ keen curiosity and appetite for imagery would have shifted swiftly from Japan to scenes of the War. The plates are unsurprisingly a bit militaristic in nature, titled: 1) “Officers of the 2nd Rank” 2) “Two Grandees of Japan” 3) “Japanese Officer” 4) “War Boat” 5) “Japanese Peasant” 6) “Japanese Performing the ‘Ko-Tow’” 7) “Hats and Various Insignias of Rank” 8) “Merchant Vessel” 9) “Japanese Boatman” 10) “Japanese Dressed in Chain Armer (Commanding Officer)” 11) “Standards Carried by Various War Boats & Socks and Sandals of the Lower Class” 12) “2 Officers Saluting Each Other." There is no mention of this work in the standard references. Its rarity can be accounted for by a presumed interruption in publication caused directly or indirectly by the American Civil War. See Reese Company Catalogue 369, no. 76 (this copy, quoting William Reese: “in twenty years of intensively collecting American color plate books, and forming the largest collection of them ever put together, I never heard of this book.”) Twelve color lithographed plates by Julius Bien approx. 280 x 215mm (sizes vary somewhat, a few minor blemishes). Loose and laid into original pebbled cloth covers, stamped in blind and titled in gilt (sunned, nicks to lower joint).