Beschreibung:

Kyosai (Toiku Kawanabe). Ehon Taka Kagami [Picture-Book Mirror of Hawks], 5 volumes bound in one, [Tokyo, 1866-1880], fine monochrome woodblock illustrations throughout (title to fifth volume with partial colour), stitched Japanese-style, spine gilt decorated, rubbed and minor wear to extremities, 2 woodcut titles printed on thin paper (here bound before the fifth part, and at the end of the volume), bound in near-contemporary red half calf, 22.3 x 15.8 cm (8.75 x 6.25 ins) (Qty: 1) Provenance: Ralph William Frankland Payne Gallwey (1848-1916), 3rd Baronet of Thirkleby Park, Thirsk, engineer, historian, artist, and huntsman, and author of The Book of Duck Decoys (1886), Letters to Young Shooters (1890, 1892 and 1896), The Crossbow (1903), and other works. With handwritten inscription by Payne Gallwey to front blank in pencil: 'This capital treatise on the use of the Goshawk in Japan consists of a series of small booklets bound up and which I purchased at Liberty's Regent St., 1889, on their arrival in England. R.P.G.', and with bookplate of the Library, Thirkleby Park, Thirsk to front pastedown. A later handwritten note tipped on to the front pastedown states that this work is now the property of 'F.P. Davis, 171 Roseberry St, Ardwick M/c. 11, bought at the Thirkleby Hall sale'. Thirkleby Hall was put up for sale following the death of Sir Ralph's son and male heir in the first world war. Harting 371; Schwerdt III 245. Kyosai's Ehon Taka Kagami, or Mirror of Hawks, published in five parts in Tokyo by Nakamura Sasuke is an important source book for the history and practice of falconry in Japan. It records, for example, the methods of care, raising and training of the Siberian goshawk, considered the best bird for use in falconry in Japan since ancient times. According to Schwerdt, the work is "a very comprehensive and instructive treatise on falconry. It is rare, only seven copies having been traced in European libraries" (Schwerdt, volume III, page 245).