Japanese Prints & Drawings from the Vever Collection (COMPLETE 3 VOLUMES)

Sotheby Parke Bernet Publication LTD, New Jersey and Rizzoli International Publications, Inc, New York, 1976 Book. Good. Hardcover. English text.; Hardcover (3 volumes with dust jacket in slipcase). Top edges gilt.; 34 x 25.5 cm.; 8.3 Kg.; 1034 pages with black and white and a few colour illustrations.; Used with signs of wear on the dust jackets and slipcase. Interior in very good condition.; Limited edition of 2,000 copies of which this is 793.; Among the arts of Japan, the colour print continues to exercise the strongest appeal to us in the West. The main reason for the present widespread and growing interest is the powerful design combined with the beauty of the colour harmonies of the prints. But there are also other reasons; they depict a Japan of the past now almost vanished, its culture, mores, annual events, legends and its history; and they also show the influence of the Japanese print on the evolution of modern Western art. In the last few years the most important event in the world of Japanese prints was the discovery of the great collection formed by Henri Vever, a prominent Parisian jeweller and one of the earliest protagonists of Japonism. His first acquisitions were made in the 1880s, and by 1920 he was able to dispose of many thousands to a Japanese industrialist from whom they went eventually to the Tokyo National Museum, where they now form the major part of the national collection. But Henri Vever retained many of the choicest specimens to which he later added by astute buying in the 1920, when the collections of erstwhile rivals like Gonse, Haviland, Manzi, and Javal came under the hammer in Paris. The outbreak of war in 1939 and the occupation of France led to the complete disappearance of what had become a legendary collection and its survival remained in doubt until it was announced that part of it was to be sold at Sotheby's in two sales, one in 1974 and another in 1975. In order to record this unique collection in a manner worthy of its importance, the volumes comprise not only the prints and drawings that appeared in the two sales but also, through the generous co-operation of the present owner, those that will not be sold, many of which are of the greatest rarity and have seldom, if ever, been reproduced before. The 970 items, all of which are illustrated, about 69 in colour, have been arranged chronologically and those in series have been placed in their correct order. Brief notes on the artists, their style of work and environment, as well as the development of the wood-block print in Japan, link each section. The name of the artist is also shown in Japanese characters. The quality of these prints and drawings bear witness to the supremacy of Henri Vever as a collector and provide what is the finest and most comprehensive series of illustrations ever to appear on the subject in Western literature. Jack Hillier, whose unrivalled expertise in the field of the Japanese print is internationally recognised, is the author of numerous books on Japanese prints and paintings which have appeared over the last twenty years..