Kangetsu, Shitomi (illust.); Kimura Kenkadō (ed.)

Nihon Sankai Meisan Zue [Illustrations of the Noted Products of Mountain and Sea]

Kangetsu, Shitomi (illust.); Kimura Kenkadō (ed.). Nihon Sankai Meisan Zue [Illustrations of the Noted Products of Mountain and Sea]. Five volumes [Osaka]: [Shioya Chobei], 1799. First edition.

Octavo (9 7/8” x 7”, 251mm x 177mm):
Vol. I: 16 leaves, foll. 一– 三 (preface by Kimura Kokyo), foll. ₂一–十三. With 13 woodblock prints illustrating sake production integral with the text.
Vol. II: 24 leaves, pp. [2] (2pp. text) foll. 一– 四十一. With 36 woodblock prints illustrating stonework and trapping integral with the text.
Vol. III: 29 leaves, pp. foll. [一] 二–二十八 [2] (1pp. text, blank). With 28 woodblock prints illustrating fishing integral with the text.
Vol. IV: 37 leaves, pp. [2] (2pp. text) foll. 一– 三十六. With 34 woodblock prints illustrating seafood preparation integral with the text.
Vol. V: 32 leaves, pp. [2] (2pp. text) foll. 一–二十九, ₂一 [2] (2pp. text). With 30 woodblock prints illustrating Sino-Japanese relations and man-made products integral with the text.
With 141 full-page woodblock prints in toto.

Ohiron (concertina) stabbed bound in original blue drab publisher’s wrappers with a paper lettering piece to each front board. Woodblock printed on mulberry paper. With tabs numbered in Arabic numerals extending from the binding edge.

Soiling and sporadic worming to the boards and loss to their extremities. Pastedowns lifting. Spotting, thumbsoiling, worming, and facsimile infill throughout. In volume II, worming to the text and prints of leaves 1–5 and worming to top edge throughout. Ink stain along the fore-edge of the text-block in volume II. Last leaf of volume III adhered to the rear pastedown. In volume IV, 三十三 paginated “三十二” and 三十四 paginated “三十三.” Circular paper labels numbered in manuscript affixed to the front wrapper of each volume. Manuscript cataloging notes laid in at the rear of volume V.


During the late Edo period, literacy in Japan increased significantly due to prolonged peace, a booming economy, and the spread of community-run terakoya (temple schools) accessible to both boys and girls across social classes.  With a new crop of young readers, commercial publishing boomed to meet demand. Booksellers, very active in Japan's three major cities — Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka — responded to this demand by offering works written in the vernacular, in which Chinese characters were systematically accompanied by readings in phonetic syllabaries (furigana). In this way, scholarly books, previously reserved for the upper echelon, became accessible "to women and children," as Kimura Kenkadō (1736–1802), the author of the present volume, writes with satisfaction in his preface. As broad introductions to facets of Japan’s culture, the genre of domestic encyclopedias and illustrated guides took root with a new audience.

Kimura Kenkadō had come from a lineage of rice wine merchants but applied himself to the humanities after being convicted of excessive alcohol production in his youth. Alongside Shitomi Kangetsu (1747–1797), a celebrated painter and printer of the Imperial court, Kenkadō released Nihon Sankai Meisan Zue. In actuality, the volumes were likely authored by a larger group (Horiuchi attests that the work was largely based on Hirase Tessai’s 1754 book, Nihon Sankai Meibutsu zue), but illustrated encyclopedias often lacked bylines and the two men had amassed enough local celebrity to boost the set’s shelf appeal.

Nihon Sankai Meisan Zue aimed to promote Japan's "renowned products," an initiative that bears the mark of the city where it originated. Osaka played a pivotal role in the Edo period’s economy as many regional goods were transported and stored in the city before being redeployed within the country or abroad. Kenkadō and Kangetsu additionally placed a great deal of importance on the quality of the products, undoubtedly due to the increase in independent merchants originating from rural areas and not subject to the regulations imposed by guilds. These merchants were chiefly concerned with supplying private clients and the burgeoning restaurant market with high price specialty items. In this sense, the Meisan Zue is also, and even primarily, a guide for gourmands, aiming to inform consumers on how to distinguish authentic products from imitations and the seasons or regions in which these products are available. The severity of specialty items’ parallel trade was such that, at the end of the 18^th c., the Tokugawa were forced to issue decrees to regulate the food market and secure resources.

The five volumes painstakingly catalog regional industries and domestic products from across the islands, including the famous sake brewing in Itami, abalone diving in Ise, apiculture in Kumano, and dried bonito production in Shikoku. In the preface, Kenkadō laments that that Kangetsu did not live to see the set through the press, making Nihon Sankai Meisan Zue Kangetsu’s last known work. The publication is exceedingly rare, with less than 10 examples of the 1799 edition recorded by OCLC. The final two leaves of the present example’s fifth volume differ from the example held by the Smithsonian, indicating multiple issues of the first edition. It is unclear which issue takes precedent, but the content (an overview of shops carrying the work and a credit to the publishers) does not significantly differ between examples.

Smithsonian Library Catalog 960881037, Horiuchi and Struve, Guide illustré des produits renommés des monts et mers du Japon, pp. 15.

 

Cataloged by G.R. Murdock

Item #GRM0090

Price: $3,500