Emakimono 絵巻物 (horizontal picture scroll) - Kozo washi - Ornithology - Unknown - 'Emakimono chorui gaku' 絵巻物鳥類学 (picture scroll with studies of various birds) - Japan - Second half 19th century (Meiji period)

Emakimono 絵巻物 (horizontal picture scroll) - Kozo washi - Ornithology - Unknown - 'Emakimono chorui gaku' 絵巻物鳥類学 (picture scroll with studies of various birds) - Japan - Second half 19th century (Meiji period) Here for auction an impressive emakimono ornithology scroll. Handpainted over more than 11 meters (1120 cm) and 34 cm width, binded in kansuso binding method in fine thick kozo washi, backed by another sheet of kozo. Some colors remained vivid, some faded. Foxing is present more on the back and occasional foxing on the front. Creases but no tears. Almost all of the scroll's lenght is scanned here and any damage can be seen. Katakana names of each bird beside each image but these names are not the zoological names (latin) of the birds but merely a transliteration of the japanese names in katakana, for ease of reading, since the kanji used for the various types of birds were not so common. So for example, the first bird, from right to left as we open the scroll is the Uguisu, the native japanese bush warbler (鶯) but its name is written ウグイス . It was also common for biology/ornithology texts to use katakana syllabary. For anyone interested in the first ornithological texts, please see this: journal18. org/issue4/mediated-realism-in-kuwagata-keisais-illustrated-book-of-birds-from-abroad/ Unfortunately there is no name or any other source info. I would date it, by the looks of it, the quality of the fine thick-fiber kozo paper, the sometimes faded colors, anywhere around late Meiji's 1890. It was clearly composed by someone well versed in both painting and ornithology, the birds are very accurately described. A rare find, a well deserved place in any serious collector's library. I haven't counted the birds, I guess there are around 200+ ***Kansuso (a hand scroll or horizontal scroll) means a binding style of a horizontally long sized scroll of paper (or silk cloths on rare occasions) made up of many rectangular sheets connected side by side in lateral direction, and equipped with a roller on one end of the sheet to wind the whole sheet up on it to store the scroll, and we call various documents, Buddhist sutras, and other paintings, which are made up in this kansuso method of binding, as 'kansubon' or more generally 'makimono. '