Netsuke & Inro Artists, and How to Read Their Signatures (2 volumes in slipcase)

English text; Hardcover (cloth without dust jacket - as issued - in slipcase); 23 x 29 cm; 5.63 Kg; 2 volumes with 1376 pages, with black and white images, except 22 colour pages on volume 1 with selected pieces from the collection of George & Verna Lazarnick.; Used books with signs of wear on the exterior and interior. The exterior of both volumes shows minor wear marks on the front and back cover, however both spines are faded and worn, the spine of volume 1 shows some damage near the lettering, with a few small chips throughout. Interior of both volumes with minor signs of wear, apart from volume one which shows the front free endpaper slightly glued to title page. The slipcase shows some wear marks, scuffs and scratches throughout with a small chip at the bottom. Good condition overall.; "The first logically organized approach to the problem of helping a collector identify an unknown signature was made in 1976 by Mr. Lazarnick when he wrote and assembled The Signature Book of Netsuke, Inro and Ojime Artists in Photographs. This was a methodically planned reference work containing and extraordinary amount of detailed information on these artists presented in such a manner that even a neophyte collector could soon learn how to read signatures and identify artists. This present book, Netsuke and Inro Artists and How to Read Their Signatures is an outgrowth of his first work but can only be compared in part since the information now included is far more comprehensive and better arranged, while the number of photographs reproduced is enormously greater. The material gathered by Mr. Lazarnick is staggering in its volume. For example he reproduces five and one-half times as many kahihan as the one hundred in Joly's Behrens Collections. He photographed netsuke, inro and their signatures and collected information from 23 museums, countless collectors, dealers and auction houses, and extracted material from just about all of the books on the subject in several languages including Japanese." excerpt from the foreword by C.V.S. Roosevelt, Washington D.C., 1981.…