Chinese Fishermen: A Masterpiece of the Sung Dynasty

Peking: Poplar-Island Press, 1938. Hardcover. Very Good. Limited Edition, this being #75 of 150 copies. Folio volume with illustrated card-board covers. Housed in a blue cloth portfolio box with traditional bone-fastenings. Printed on seven 19 x 24 inch sheets. Six of the illustrations on double-page spreads. With loose tissue dividers. 16 ff. Boards and slipcase are in VG condition. Leaves are fine/near fine; tissue guards wrinkled. Eight copies located on OCLC (Metropolitan Museum of Art, Victoria and Albert Museum, six universities). Seven illustrations from the scroll of Ma Yuan (ca. 1160-1225), the famous master of Chinese painting of the Song Dynasty, that depicted in detail and in continuation the daily life of fishermen and peasants. The series as issued here includes the image that ends the scroll, speculated to be a self-portrait of the artist. Mr. Tu Tien-San, a Peking artist, reproduced on a graphic stone the pictures with brush and Chinese ink according to the manner of the original. The printing of this set was done by the Poplar-Island Press, founded in 1937 outside the gates of Peking. The press was owned by Vincenz Hundhausen, a professor of German language at Peking University. The press was initially founded as a venue for publishing Hundhausen's own poetic works, but eventually grew to become a large private publishing business in pre-war China.