Beijing Rong Bao Zhai Shi Jianpu.

1 volume (of 2). 42 woodblock prints on 41 bifolia, 38 of which being colour plates. Loose in a decorative cloth-bound portfolio. Folio (225 x 315 mm). Second edition, the first one available: due to nationalization of the publisher, very few copies of the 1951 first edition were printed. Subsequently reprints appeared in 1955, and 1957. The set consists of stationery designed by some of the most famous Chinese artists of the time, depicting various themes, including flowers, landscapes and portraits. All designs were carefully chosen from Rongbao Zhai’s extensive archive, accumulated over 300 years. - Produced by traditional Chinese colour printing methods - Dou Ban and Gong Hua - which ware capable of faithfully reproducing the vigour of the brush strokes, arguably the essence of Chinese paintings. Dou Ban is a multi-colour printing technique using multiple carved woodblocks, sometimes as many as seventy different blocks, to create a single multi-colour image. Gong Hua is the use of an uninked, imprinted block to emboss designs onto papers, allowing highlights on water or plants that are otherwise impossible to create with other woodblock printing methods. - Some edge flaws, fraying and wrinkling; occasional dust-staining to margins. Traces of original block-stitching in open margin. Preserving many of the original tissue guards. One of the bone cover latches broken.