Illustrations

Early Printed and Rare Books

Flying Squirrels and Delicious Garlic: Animals and Plants in an Illuminated Early-Modern Miscellany of Ancient Japanese Poetry

An early-modern scholar selected ancient Japanese poems that mentioned plants and animals and created an illustrated woodblock-printed anthology. The poems, which showcase the diversity of human engagement with the natural world in ancient Japan, come alive through the masterfully created images.

Gone is different from dead

In 1997, Jacq Vogelaar—who was mainly known as an experimental prose writer and as a literary critic—published a poetry collection for the first time in over thirty years: Klaaglied om Ka, which was released as a bibliophile edition with notable illustrations. What prompted this poetic comeback?

Manuscripts, Archives and Letters · Asian Special Collections

A Piano on Java

Pen drawings in a manuscript copy of the story 'Sarina. A Javanese woman' show a piano. But what is a piano doing on Java?