At Bonhams (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on February 1 a twovolume, first English edition (second issue) of 1728 in JG Scheuchzer’s translation, containing appendices on such things as tea, paper, acupuncture, ambergis and the country’s policy of self-imposed seclusion from the wider world, sold at a record £7000.
In rebacked period calf, it contains 45 mostly double-page plates, one of which, reproduced here, shows a temple in the Matsushima group of some 260 small pine-covered islands in the Miyagai Prefecture, long regarded as one of the country’s most scenic regions.
