Four parts bound in three, folio (218 x 320 mm). 31 ff.; 26; 33 ff.; 29 ff., woodblock-printed on rice or mulberry paper, with 108 full-page woodcuts (50 in vol. I, 30 in vol. II, 28 in vol. III). Original painted wrappers with floral pattern, stitched in the Chinese manner, printed title label to upper cover. Modern blue cloth chitsu case. A fine, clean set, preserved in the original painted wrappers, with only minimal handling wear.

Designed by the famous Ming dynasty artist Gu Bing (active 1594-1603) and also known simply as "Master Gu’s Album", the series was first published in 1603 in Chinese Hangzhou. The work reproduces, at a reduced scale, masterworks attributed to leading painters across successive dynasties, each plate accompanied by a finely written identification on the facing text. Its four parts are arranged chronologically, moving from early masters through Song and Yuan exemplars to later Ming painting, and include one female artist, Guan Daosheng.

Prepared by and issued under the name of Tani Buncho (1763-1840), the influential Edo-period painter and connoisseur, the present set testifies to the intensity with which Japanese artists studied Chinese pictorial canons at the turn of the 19th century. Faithfully echoing the Gu Bing's original Chinese compilation, these crisp blocks transmit an influential model of connoisseurship and artistic genealogy at the moment when printed manuals and albums increasingly shaped atelier practice.

Provenance: from the collection of an unidentified early owner, indicated by a red seal stamp to the beginning of vol. I; private collection in Europe.

According to OCLC we locate a single copy in the United States, at Harvard.

Philip K. Hu, Visible Traces. Exhibition Catalogue. Rare Books and Special Collections from the National Library of China, N.Y.C., Queens Borough Library and National Library of China (Beijing, 2000), no. 8 (for the 1603 first edition).