Condition Report
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Auction Specialist
Lot 2
Sale 6330 - Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana
May 8, 2025
10:00AM CT
Live / Chicago
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Estimate
$15,000 -
20,000
Price Realized
$23,040
Sold prices are inclusive of Buyer’s Premium
Lot Description
[ARTIST BOOK]. FOUJITA, Léonard Tsuguharu (1886-1968), artist. -- JOSEPH, Michael (1897-1958). A Book of Cats being Twenty Drawings by Foujita. New York: Covici Friede, 1930.
Folio. 20 etchings; 20 additional hors-texte etchings by Foujita on Japanese vellum, loose in a separate folding case. (Minor toning.) Original red cloth, front cover and spine lettered in silver (light rubbing to extremities, spine sunned, soiling to covers); modern quarter calf folding case.
FOUJITA'S MOST BELOVED WORK, “certainly one of the rarest and most desired books on cats in existence” (Kalda).
LIMITED EDITION, number 256 of 500 copies on handmade Arches paper, SIGNED BY FOUJITA. WITH THE ADDITIONAL SUITE OF PLATES, SIGNED IN PENCIL BY FOUJITA ON THE EPRATH PLATE. Foujita was born and educated in Tokyo before moving to Paris in 1913. He applied Japanese ink techniques to Western-style art, lending his well-loved depictions of cats to this popular work. Sam Kalda, Of Cats and Men, p.43.