The Art of Japanese Hair Comb Patterns (Kushi Hinagata)

by Stephen J. Gertz

Sometime post-1905, an anonymous gentleman in Japan, wishing to preserve his collection of rice-paper rubbings of setsu kushi hinagata (patterns of miniature combs),  took three issues of Japan Art Society Reports from the 37th Year of the Meiji (1905), mounted the rubbings on each page,  had the issues bound together, crossed out the original titles and provided one in black ink.

Each page has two rubbed patterns, each pattern with upper and lower views of each comb, and the rubbings are remarkably sharp with even small details very  clear. The fact that the  patterns on the original combs had been so delicately carved is testament to the artistry brought to bear by their creators.

The resulting unique scrapbook features over 500 charcoal rubbings of miniature Japanese combs and hairpins (koagi).

The art of Japanese hair decoration, or kushi, dates back hundreds of years and has rich and varied heritage. As with much Eastern art it served to "beautify items of everyday use, to make the commonplace extraordinary [and] to tell of the life and status of the wearers, who were geisha, courtesans, court ladies, and housewives" (Daruma 35, vol. 9, No. 3, Summer 2002). And, indeed, this work is a testament to the beautiful and elegant diversity of this Japanese decorative art.

It's a curious, attractive and visually arresting book, one with clear aesthetic merit given the obsessive care and attention necessary to compile such a volume. As such, it's a valuable historical, cultural, and artistic record as well as an object that, as much as its subject, renders the commonplace extraordinary, and takes its place along side of Katsushika Hokusai's classic three-volume Imayo Kushi Hinagata (1823) as a key reference.

Traditional comb shapes are half moon, horseshoe, and square. The combs were often worn in concert with koagi (hair pins) in classical Japanese hairdressing.

Sakura (cherry blossoms), ume (Japanese plums), chrysanthemums, and peonies are typically employed patterns.

"Women have always adorned themselves but perhaps none so subtly as the Japanese. You can reproduce the old hairstyles seen in painting and sculpture but their hair ornaments remind us of the coiffures on which they were worn. In other words, hair ornaments are tangible souvenirs of ancient hairstyles.

 

"Hair ornaments were not mere accessories to feminine coiffure and attire. In keeping with the Japanese urge to beautify items of everyday use, to make the commonplace extraordinary, they were turned into artistic objects mirroring cultural and and social history. They tell of the life and status of their wearers, who were geisha, courtesans, court ladies, and housewives.

"They give a glimpse of the exceptional beauty of Japanese art..." (Ibid. Daruma). 

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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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The Rare and Exquisite $30,000-$50,000 Flower Seed Catalogue

by Stephen J. Gertz

April.

A very attractive copy of Robert Furber's classic, Twelve Months of Flowers (1730), comes to auction at Bonham's-New York Fine Books and Manuscripts sale, October 10, 2011. It is estimated to sell for $30,000-$50,000.

It's a glorified seed catalogue, and glorious it is.

August.

Furber's intent was "to make the Love of Gardening more general, and the understanding of it more easy, I have from time to time published Catalogues, containing large Variety of Trees, Plants, Fruits, and Flowers, both Foreign and Domestic, cultivated by me for Sale" (Short Introduction to Gardening). The flowers were grouped into bouquets according to the month they bloomed, and referenced with numbers and captions so that Furber's customers could order particular specimens. In this regard, the publication follows in the tradition of Emanuel Sweert's Florilegium (1612-1614), a similarly elaborate sale catalogue.

Furber spared no expense, commissioning the celebrated Antwerp-born painter Pieter Casteels and the skilled engraver Henry Fletcher. The illustrations transcended their original commercial purpose and were reprinted throughout the 18th century to capitalize on their decorative appeal.

December.

"In the years 1730 and 1732, there appeared two extremely important series of plates, both published by Robert Furber, a nurseryman in Kensington, then outside of London. One series is entitled, Twelve Months of Flowers and the other, Twelve Months of Fruit. These are sales catalogues in the grand manner, consisting of arrangements of flowers or fruits according to the months in which they bloom or ripen. Each flower or fruit bears a small number and its name is to be found by referring to a the key at the bottom of the plate. From these prints patrons actually ordered their new plant material.

February.

"These plates were engraved by Fletcher after drawings by Casteels, a Flemish painter who had settled in London, and were 'colored to the life,' as Furber tells us. In all, some four hundred flowers are depicted and three hundred and sixty-four kinds of fruit. The catalogues of twelve plates, one for each month, were issued without texts. In the case of Twelve Months of Flowers, a list of the four hundred and fifty subscribers was engraved within a delightful floral border of the favorite flowers…

January.

"This catalogue was so well received that in 1732 Furber issued a volume, quarto in size, entitled The Flower Garden Displayed…

March.

"Furber's customers evidently had encountered the same difficulties which have defeated the efforts of the succeeding generations of gardeners to grow flowers like the pictures in the catalogue...

October.

"That the decorative quality of Twelve Months of Flowers was fully appreciated, it is proved by the fact that six different publishers in the 1740s and 1750s offered copies of the plates which could no longer have served the purpose of a nurseryman's catalogue. These were re-engraved in reverse on a slightly smaller scale with the addition of butterflies, caterpillars and other insects which in many cases over-crowded the composition" (Dunthorne, Gordon. Flower & Fruit Prints of the 18th and 19th Centuries, pp. 12-15). 

The last three copies complete with the subscriber's list to fall under the hammer fetched $30,000 (Pacific, April 1, 2010, lot 398, two plates torn);  $47,500 (the Michale Kuse copy, Sotheby's New York, June 20, 2003, lot 12); and $100,100 (Christie's, Nov 28, 2001, lot 27).

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FURBER, Robert (c.1674-1756). Twelve Months of Flowers. Kensington: Robert Furber, 1730. First edition. Broadsheets (sheets mostly 430 x 330 mm). Engraved leaf of subscribers (585 x 460 mm) including title and dedication all within pictorial border of tulips, irises, carnations and other blooms, Twelve finely hand-colored engraved plates by Henry Fletcher after Pieter Casteels (1684-1740) All but November laid down. 

Dunthorne 115. BMNH II, 632.  Henrey 734. Nissen 675.

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Images courtesy of Bonham's, with our thanks.
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The Wikipedia entry for Pieter Casteels claims that a copy of Twelve Months of Flowers sold at Christie's on May 25, 2005 for $1,640,000. Neither Christie's nor ABPC have a record of that sale or price at any date.

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Chippendale Bookcase, c. 1765, Estimated at $700K-$1M

by Stephen J. Gertz

The Messer Chippendale Secretaire Library Bookcase
99 in. (251.5 cm) high; 79 in. (199.5 cm) wide; 24 1/2 in. (162.5 cm) deep.

Need bookshelf space but Ikea won't cut it? Want to move up into shelving that makes a statement, as in, Lottery Winner!?

In New York, on October 21, 2010, Christies is offering the Samuel Messer Chippendale Secretaire Library Bookcase, a George III ebony-inlaid mahogany art cabinet attributed to Thomas Chippendale, c. 1765, as part of its 500 Years: Decorative Arts Europe sale.

Christies, which originally sold the piece as part of its Messer Collection of English Furniture sale in 1991, estimates it will sell for $700,000 to $1,000,000.

"Of stepped breakfront outline, the central section with imbricated and ebony-veneered swan's neck cresting centered by a platform over a fiddleback mahogany cross-grained frieze, the central door with glazing bars centered by a foliate C-scroll cartouche suspended from husk chairs and within an arch and lozenge tablets, the side sections with pierced hexagon-pattern galleries and later draped urn ebony-inlaid finials over glazed doors of a similar arched and lozenge design headed by a clasp, the three doors enclosing mahogany-fronted shelves, the base with a secretaire drawer fitted with a baize-lined double ratchet easel and two mahogany-lined side drawers (one divided) over three long drawers all mounted with original foliate-cast gilt-lacquered handles, flanked by a pair of cut-corner cupboard doors, the whole inlaid in ebony with stylized foliate scrolls, and broad lines in geometric patterns of cut-corner and circular panels, with ebonized-molded base, the hinges of top drawer stamped H. TIBATS, and labeled G. JETLEY/24, BRUTON ST. BERKELEY SQ. WI, the central platform support and finials later, the underside of plinth with yellow wash over an apparently original red wash" (From Christies' catalog description).

And, unlike Ikea book shelves, no assembly required.

(That catalog note is one of the most  objectively observed, keenly articulate, yet lyrical descriptions that I have read in quite a while. The prose sings, the report enchants,  by the end you're in a trance).

The volumes that could have filled this bookcase in 1765 may likely have included books that were issued in that year, first editions new then but rare books now:

• Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Lawrence Stern  (vols. 7 and 8).
• The Fool of Quality by Henry Brooke.
• Works of William Collins.
• The Works of Ossian (James Macpherson).
• Commentaries on the Laws of England by William Blackstone.
• A Complete History of England by Thomas Smollett.
• An Essay on a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life by  Joseph Priestley.
• Essays by Oliver Goldsmith.
• The Plays of William Shakespeare, edited by Samuel Johnson.
• A Review of Doctor Johnson's New Edition of Shakespeare by William Kenrick.

But I like to think that the very wealthy gentleman of the Age of Enlightenment who originally bought it was one with an interest in Shakespeare and also owned a First Folio, and a Gutenberg. He had an interest in science and so possessed first  editions of  Copernicus, Galileo. and other greats. Early printing fascinated him; he had an eye for incunabula.

If those books come with the bookcase at the Christies sale bump up the estimate a few million or so.
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