Shizhuzhai Jianpu ("Decorated Letter Papers From The Ten Bamboo Studio"). Hu, Zhengyan.

The exquisite 1952 Rongbaozhai facsimile edition of this famous 17th-century catalogue, which has served as a primer for generations of Chinese artists since the Qing dynasty. Jan Tschichold, who brought the work to the attention of a western audience in 1970, called this edition "the finest issue. An incomparably perfect facsimile" (quoted by Auckland). Chinese jianpu ("letter papers") were sheets of decorated stationary made for literati and poets. Decorated Letter Papers from the Ten Bamboo Studio was first printed in 1633 by Hu Zhengyan (1584-1674). Hu was a publisher, calligrapher and artist who produced and sold letter papers at his Ten Bamboo Studio in Nanjing. The work contains hundreds of exemplars drawn from the work of 50 artists (including Zhao Mengfu, Wen Zhengming, Shen Zhou, and other luminaries) and is categorized by subjects such as dragons, rocks, and orchids. For the next 200 years, together with the Jieziyuan huapu (Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden), it shaped the development of Chinese and Japanese painting and woodblock aesthetics. In the 1930s, given the abject rarity of imperial-era printings, the catalogue was reissued by Lu Xun and the historian Zheng Zhenduo. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, a reinvigorated Rongbaozhai recut the Lu-Zheng edition while remaining faithful to the printing techniques of Hu's original. Here, the illustrations are printed with the douban (layered) technique. Some are enhanced with a sophisticated decorative technique known as gonghua, a form of blind stamping. "By sandwiching two blocks together and applying pressure manually, three-dimensional effects with protruding and concave lines can be created once the paper was completely dry. It is similar to metal stamping, but each piece was unique as the final result all depended on how much and where the pressure has been applied" (Wu). Founded in 1894 on the legacy of a studio dating back to 1672, Rongbaozhai's publications are typified by decorative silk brocade cases, volumes bound in the traditional Chinese xianzhuang style, and the use of xuan paper, long prized by artists and calligraphers. Post-1949, Rongbaozhai became a state-controlled publishing enterprise and continued to specialize in collectable art publications issued in small print-runs for a select political and cultural elite, as well as for overseas sale to art connoisseurs, book collectors, and institutions. Auckland Museum, "Shi zhu zhai jian pu [Ten Bamboo Studio letter paper", available online; Wu Xingyi, "A Glance at Jian-zhi – Delicate Studio paper in Ancient China: Shi Zhu Zhai Jian Pu", University of Melbourne Special Collections blog. Four volumes, quarto. Original gold-flecked brown wrappers, brown silk thread xianzhuang stitching, spine ends capped with light blue silk, gold-flecked pink paper title labels with calligraphic titles blocked in black. Housed in original decorative silk brocade folding case, calligraphic title label, bone toggles, imprint label laid down on inner lining as issued. Colour woodblock and embossed illustrations throughout all 4 volumes. Wrappers fresh, a little of creasing and nicking, touch of sunning at foot of front covers, top and bottom edges toned, illustrations beautifully preserved: a near-fine copy in like case with light rubbing, title label toned, paste-action browning to internal paper lining.