Japanese Art: Masterpieces in the British Museum

New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1990. Hardcover. VG-/VG- (book shows minimal wear at edges, all pages clear and intact - minor wear to dust jacket at top, spine and corners, still protective). Black cloth boards with silver gilt lettering on spine, black and color illustrated dust jacket with white lettering, 256 pp., color illustrations throughout. "The richness and variety of Japanese art and culture is not always fully appreciated, even by enthusiasts or collectors, whose knowledge may extend to only one or two of those arts. There are many who know about prints or netsuke or flower arrangement, for example, who are quite unaware of the great older traditions of Buddhist sculpture and painting, lacquereware, or indeed of the extraordinary pottery of the prehistoric periods. The British Museum's collection is the widest and most comprehensive of any in Europe, and in this book the authors present a succinct account of the whole range of Japanese art and antiques using those collections as a basis. The material ranges from prehistoric archaeology to the prints of the twentieth century and embraces all the other major arts between, including sculpture, metalwork, painting and ceramics. The text relates them to each other and to the wider culture of East Asia, and the modern international world. This is a handbook for all who are seriously interested in Japan's many unique contributions to world art." - dust jacket description.