This delightfully colorful antique collection of kimono and kamon (Japanese family crest) designs turned up in a bookshop in Seattle in the 1980s. Originally published in 1896, it contains 32 colored wood block prints: 11 kimono designs, each on a separate page, and 21 pages of kamon designs. The kimono designs comprise a part of a larger selection that were original to the catalogue, but the elegant gallery of kamon designs is complete. A tailor's customer would order kimonos from the illustrations in the catalogue and incorporate his or her kamon into the design. The set has been rebound in a grass cover with the original front cover design acting as the title page, followed by a page of Japanese text that I have not gotten translated. But a note in the margin of one page dates this collection of traditional designs to 1896. Two of the kamon page are slightly torn, otherwise these pages are in good condition. The designs themselves are outlets suitable for framing and display.
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Product code: Antique Kimono and Kamon Catalogue outlets