A hand painted Japanese album with 63 exquisite yuzen dye patterns by Anonymous

Offering: A hand painted, bound Japanese album with 63 exquisite yuzen dye designs, done with understated restraint in the iki chic style, likely by an uncredited woman artist to assist sophisticated patrons at a gofukuya with their autumn kimono purchase. The album isn't dated but some of the designs can be dated by content and style to the late Meiji period, post-1905. Sixty designs were done with light colors and ink, the artist employing a variety of blues, browns, and greens : three pages are done in sumi. Twelve pages show design variations for the patron to choose from and are of considerable interest. Designs are generally from Nature and evoke small things and quiet places. Motifs (with acorn, feather, leaf, Chinese cabbage and succulents, dragonflies and butterflies) are elegantly handled to show shared and recurring forms. Some decorative landscapes are shown on objects, including fans and books. Although album sheets show some wear and soiling, colors are fresh and retain their glow and sheen, for the pigments have been prepared in the painstaking, traditional way described in the Mustard Seed Garden. The iwa-enogu mineral pigments used for the top layers of paint hold the light and give the designs a luminous quality. Pagination: 41 pages with 39 pages of designs + 2 pages with one column of text, (introduction, p. 1 and ending page, p. 41). Format: Blind printed, royal yellow wrappers sewn with four-stab holes in the Fukuro-toji style. The album is bound with twenty one sheets of Seichosen kozo suitable for presentation, a superior grade mulberry bush paper with a warm, natural light yellow color. Size: 254 x 174 mm (10 x 6.85 inches). Condition: Near Good. Pages: some with edgewear and cockling from humidity, some with soiling, chiefly on the bottom edge; some pages with minor color bleed, two pages with color rubs, a few rear sheets with ink blots from later owner with damage to design on p. 37. Insect Damage: Slight-to-light worming to twenty four pages (pp. 1-6 and pp. 20-28 have small light worm track at bottom edge / a worm track near center of gutter begins as two pinholes on p. 30, ending as slight-light track on p. 20). / Wrappers: All-around wear including abrasions, the blind printed pattern still visible, upper side soiled, two characters faded in handwritten title. / Binding: Good, later repair to a stab-hole. Yūzen: The rice paste resist dyeing technique, applied to free hand, decorative designs in multiple colors, is credited to fan painter, Miyazaki Yūzen who worked in Kyoto during the Genroku era of the Edo Period. Additional Images: by request.