Ehon taka kagami [Picture-book mirror of hawks].

2 parts in 5 vol., 22,5 x 16 cm : 10, 10, 12, 10, 11 ff.

Stitched Japanese-style, orig. yellow gauffered paper wr. (faintly soiled), titled paper labels printed in red on upper covers, housed in a modern blue cloth Japanese-style portfolio. Good copy, inside fresh.

1st edition (?) and complete set of this woodblock printed book, a significant resource on Japanese falconry. Accordig to Schwerdt, "a very comprehensive and instructive treatise on falconry". With around 100 illustrations featuring the capture, taming and teaching of falcons, various falcons in flight or standing on perch, details of heads or feathers, hunting scenes, falconers' equipment, etc. By Kawanabe Kyosai (1831-1889), living through the Edo period to the Meiji period and considered by many to be the greatest successor of Hokusai. Pictorial title of part I on mica paper, of part II on very thin paper. Bookplate B. [Gobbe]. Ref. Schwerdt III, p. 246.