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坂田善吉 編 · 1879 · 坂田善吉 · 16 pictures

A Meiji-era Japanese picture book (ehon) compiled by Sakata Zenkichi and published by him in 1879, retelling the folktale of the tongue-cut sparrow for a general readership. The pictures are woodblock-style black-and-white line illustrations with vertical columns of Japanese text beside the scenes, showing an old man crouching by a fence, a figure beside a barred window with bare branches, and an old man walking among bamboo. A designer might take the flat hatched linework, the bold silhouettes of figures against plain panels, and the text columns framing each image.

Japanese picture books (ehon)

National Diet Library, Japan (国立国会図書館) · Public Domain Mark (PDM), National Diet Library · More from this library