AUDSLEY, George Ashdown. The Ornamental Arts of Japan.

Folio Books

First edition in book form, originally issued in two folio volumes by the author George Ashdown Audsley. One of the first large publication of Japanese Meiji period art in the late 19th century. The books contain text and plates in nine sections on the subjects of painting, embroidery, textiles, lacquer, incrusted work, metal-work, cloisonné enamel, modeling, carving, and heraldry with extensive notes on unpaginated leaves opposite each plate.

“In this splendid work…we have the most perfect view of Japanese art which has yet been published. No effort has been spared, either by the author or publisher, to produce this satisfactory result. The collections of Europe and America have been ransacked to supply the finest examples for illustration, the most skillful lithographers of Paris and Berlin have been employed to furnish the plates, and the aid of the most learned students of Japan and her arts has been called in to assist the cultivated connoisseurship of the author” (Acad., xxx, 141, in Allibone).

George Ashdown Audsley (1838-1925) was ” a Scottish architect, designer, and writer. He was among the earliest publishers to exploit the graphic potential of chromolithography, and, contrary to other major books on ornament, he made a case for classifying designs by their basic motif rather than by nationality. He was an expert on Japanese art, lecturing on the subject and between 1870 and 1884 producing several books that proved influential as sources for japonaiserie, among them Keramic Art of Japan and The Ornamental Arts of Japan. In the 1890s he produced with Maurice Ashdown Audsley an ambitious guide entitled The Practical Decorator and Ornamentalist. In 1892 he moved to New York, where he continued to produce handbooks on applied ornament, turning and stenciling with his son Berthold Audsley” (Grove Dictionary of Art).

This grand work has been hailed as the most beautiful art book of the late 19th century.

Avery Catalogue, p. 34. Allibone supplement, p. 61. Cordier 628. Item #00934

AUDSLEY, George Ashdown

410mm x 340mm