Title: Zusetsu Nihontō yōgo jitenA fantastic encyclopedic work related to terminology in the nihontō and tōsōgu world. An English supplement/translation exist (that I don’t have yet).
Title: Nippon-tō: Art swords of Japan The Walter A. Compton CollectionBeautiful book published at the occasion of an exhibition held in 1976 around the marvelous Walter A. Compton Collection, probably the best collection on Japanese swords ever outside of Japan (or even maybe including Japan). See also the Christie’s catalogs (B0208-B0210), and One hundred masterpieces from the collection of Dr. Walter A. Compton (B0020).
Title: Uchigatana-goshiraeFabulous book on the history and different types of uchigatana-gishirae, lavishly illustrated with examples from the top collection in the Tōkyō National Museum. Would have been perfect of all pictures were in color. A short introduction of the history is available in English as a very short descriptions of the items.
Title: Tōsōgu oiebori meihin shūseiA fabulous book by Shigeo Fukushi about the Gotō kinkō tōsōgu artists. The work of the artists outside of these Gotō families are covered in his companion volume Tōsōgu machibori meihin shūsei (B0180). Limited to 600.
Title: Tōsōgu machibori meihin shūseiA fabulous book by Shigeo Fukushi about the kinkō tōsōgu artists, outside of the Gotō families. These Gotō families are covered in his companion volume Tōsōgu oiebori meihin shūsei (B0181). Limited to 700.
Title: Samurai Opere della Collezione Koelliker e delle Raccolte Extraeuropee del Castello SforzescoVery beautiful exhibition catalog round the Koelliker collection. The exhibition was curated by Giuseppe Piva and contains also articles from Francesco Civita and others. Impressive.
Title: SamuraiVery nice exhibition catalog from 1984 with many pieces in European collections (private – mainly L.J. Anderson and Bernard Le Dauphin – and public) in 1984, and two top pieces from Yasukuni Jinja in Japan. The black and white pictures are often on the dark side, the color ones are much better. Also a French edition exist.
Title: Kunst in Japan tijdens de Edo-periode 1603-1868Nice exhibition catalog about the collection of the Musée du Cinquantenaire – Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Bruxelles, with besides armour also tōsōgu, paintings, netsuke, inrō, ukiyō-e,…
The catalog does also exist in French.
Title: Samurai: Japanse wapens and wapenrustingenExhibition catalog from an exhibition held by the the Belgian To-ken Club, where I was a member many years ago. It was my first ‘organized exposure’ to armour, swords, tsuba etc.
It is a painful coincidence is that this review comes online almost exactly two weeks after the then ‘voorzitter’ from the society, Willem Dolphyn passed away. So Willem, thank you for my first baby armour steps!
Title: Arts of Asia May-June 1977This number of Arts of Asia contains an article on the history of Japanese armour, nothing ground breaking but nicely illustrated. The issue contains also interesting articles on inro, netsuke ukiyo-e and costumes of the noh theatre.
