Book Category: Japan

An unusually fine example of the Japanese board game sugoroku, which translates literally to “double six,” as in a pair of dice. Sogoroku games and can be traced back to the twelfth century. They are similar to “snakes and ladders,” involving numbered squares that players navigate from bottom to top using dice, with “ladders” allowing a climb ahead or “snakes” causing a fall behind.

Originally for adults, over time the game became more oriented towards children. The sheets on which the game is played have become rare, due to their fragile nature, and examples with the accompanying pieces are almost non-existent.

The author of this sugoroku game board is identified as Ema Tsutomu 江馬勉 (1884-1979), a renowned folklorist and cultural anthropologist who was a professor at Kyoto University. Tsutomu dedicated his career to the study of Japanese customs, traditions, folklore, and ethnography.

The Domestic Industrial Expositions, or National Industrial Expositions, were a series of expos held in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka in emulation of similar events held in Western countries. Overseen by the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, the expos showed artworks, crafts, industrial products, and other exhibits displaying Japan’s modernity.

This folio book contains black and white collotype prints of the Fifth Domestic Industrial Exposition, held in Osaka between March and July 1903. It was twice the size of previous ones and the first to be open to foreign exhibitors. The images show the buildings at the exposition, interiors of some of the exhibition halls, and crowd scenes at the bazaars. Much of the pictured architecture is European in style. The images are captioned in English and Japanese.

A scarce and charming little photobook comprised of tipped-in colored photographs with printed captions. Among the evocative scenes are: “A Street in the Yoshiwara of Kyoto,” “Theatre Street, Osaka,” and “Main Street, Yokohama.”