Extraordinary prices paid for Japanese prints

One of the things I love about buying old books is the possibility that someone might have left a little something extra inside them for you... a bus ticket, a newspaper cutting, or some other little gem. I bought a second set of the original Henri Vever collection sale catalogues that were compiled by Jack Hillier, complete with their green dust jackets, a little while back and this incomplete cutting, dating from 27th March, 1974, was stuck inside the third volume:

Extraordinary prices paid for Japanese prints
By Geraldine Norman
Sale Room Correspondent

The third and final sale at Sotheby's devoted to the famous Henri Vever collection of Japanese prints produced extraordinary prices yesterday. The sale, which had been expected to make £136,235 totalled £330,680; the collection, sold in three parts, has realised £1,838,695.

Two separate Japanese dealers had chartered aircraft to bring collectors to the sale, one from Tokyo and one from Kyoto. Much of the Japanese national collection was acquired from Vever in the 1920s; his name thus stands high in Japan. Vever himself was a French jeweller, artist and collector of various items. He died in 1943.
Yesterday's sale essentially contained the left-overs of the collection, some fine prints but mostly in indifferent condition. A Harunobu print of a girl parachuting into the branches of a flowering cherry made the top price at £8,600 (estimate £400 to £500). Only one other impression of the print is recorded. She is apparently testing whether Buddha wishes her to marry; if she reaches the ground alive, he approves.

The print referred to (illustrated above) is an egoyomi, or calendar print, issued for 1765. The Japanese year was divided up into twelve long and short months, with the particular months designated as long or short ones changing each and every year, without any logical pattern. Egoyomi served as a way of letting the general public know which months would be long and which would be short, with the information often concealed within intricate designs. In this case, the long months are printed within the seashells on the young woman's kimono, and are 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 and 10.

Impressions of Ukiyo-e

For anyone coming to the subject and looking for a modern interpretation of the history of Ukiyo-e, this book is going to be an incredible disappointment. The information is totally outdated.

I have an interest in the development of the study of Japanese woodblock prints, and I enjoy reading books written in the 19th and early 20th century about the subject, so for me the fact that this book is based on writings that are a hundred years old was not a problem in itself... I find older works interesting. Unfortunately, this one is not simply a modern reprint of Dora Amsden's 'Impressions of Ukiyo-Ye', which was published in 1905. It is a joining of that book to the work of Woldemar von Seidlitz, without any indication within the book as to which parts belong to von Seidlitz and which belong to Amsden. I have the original Amsden book and on comparing the two volumes found that those parts that belong to Amsden have been edited in the new book, so the text isn't identical to the original. I can't fathom the point in taking an old work, which is so outdated that its antiquarian charm is the only thing it has going for it, and altering even that! In addition, the illustrations of artists' signatures included in Amsden's book are excluded from this one, as is the section entitled 'Hints to Collectors'.

The publisher seems to have taken two out-of-copyright books and melded them together without any regard for whether or not the finished result will be of any use to students of the subject. There is no indication to the newcomer, who is not familiar with the work of Amsden or von Seidlitz, that this book is not an original work or that it is a melding of two different works. In fact, the author biographies state:

'Woldemar von Seidlitz is a German art historian and a writer. His study of Japanese art is a work of reference in his field and continues the work of art historians before him'
'Dora Amsden is also an art historian specialised in the image of the woman in Japanese prints'

The implication here is that both writers are still living. Von Sedilitz died in 1922. Given that Amsden's book was published in 1905, how likely is it that she is still living?

The packaging of the book seems to be designed to mislead.