KAWANABE KYŌSAI

KAWANABE KYŌSAI
(1831-1889)

“A Popular Version of Aesop's Fables” (通俗伊蘇普物語, Tsuzoku Isoppu monogatari), 1875

Six volumes of black and white woodblock prints, 22,5 x 15,1 cm each

Provenance: Italian private collection.

Aesop's Fables were among the first European literary works to be translated in Japan, as early as 1593.
Published by Watanabe On in 1875, the work is taken from the volume by Thomas James first published in London in 1848, and a second time in 1863, with illustrations by John Tenniel, Joseph Wolf and Josiah Woodwhymper. Nineteen of the Kyosai's twenty-three illustrations reproduce rather faithfully those in the English text, the others being his own inventions.
A copy of this text is in the British Museum in London (inv. 1979,0305,0.514.6).