This charming book contains forty-nine illustrations of birds, animals, sea creatures, vegetables, fruit and plants, all executed in broad brush strokes and delicate colours throughout. The first edition of this book was published as one volume in 1808 (Bunka 5) with the title 頓智早席畫譜 (Tonchi soseki gafu), and with uncoloured illustrations. The National Institute of Japanese Literature, Tokyo, houses one copy fully illustrated online, ID no. 100288871, go to:
NIJL, Tonchi soseki gafu
Another copy of the second edition is in the collection of Kyushu National Library, go to:
Kyushu National Library Soseki gafu nihen

Siegfried Bing (1838–1905) was a respected dealer of Japanese art, as well as a recognised scholar, researcher, and pioneer of the Art Nouveau movement in France. He spent a year in Japan in around 1881 and developed a passion for East Asian art, playing an important role in spreading knowledge about Japan and Japanese art in the West, at a time when Western collectors were becoming interested in Japanese art. He rose to the top of European art circles alongside his friend and commercial rival Hayashi Tadamasa (1851-1906) who was also based in Paris and worked as a dealer of Japanese art. In 1890 Bing arranged the first comprehensive exhibition of ukiyo-e in Europe titled Exposition de la Gravure Japonaise at the École Nationale des Beaux-arts, Paris. The exhibition included more than seven hundred prints and four hundred books.