Bidspirit auction | Weuceslau de Moraes

Weuceslau de Moraes - Cartas do Japão - Weuceslau de Moraes, 1920. Published in Lisbon since 1920 by the Portugal-Brasil Sociedade Editora (Arthur Brandão & C.ª), this magnificent three-volume set brings together the second complete series of ”Letters from Japan” (a collection of correspondence written between 1907 and 1913) by the indispensable writer and diplomat Wenceslau de Moraes, constituting one of the fundamental pillars of Orientalist literature in the Portuguese language. The 19 cm copies stand out for their superb and luxurious period binding in blue half-leather, masterfully executed and signed in gold lettering on the back cover by the renowned and historic Persil - Porto atelier (Guilherme Persil). They feature spines with ribs profusely decorated between the ribs with elegant floral designs and gold fillets, two contrasting leather labels (red for the title and black for the volume number), covers and endpapers covered in marbled paper in shades of blue, red, and yellow, and edges of the leaves entirely carmine blue. The interior is in excellent condition, exhibiting a clean and perfectly firm text block, enriched by photographic prints outside the text (such as the author's residence in Tokushima) and a beautiful original paperback cover illustrated in color with the iconic representation of a Japanese heron flying towards the rising sun. The pedigree and ownership history of this copy are remarkable, bearing on the title page the handwritten signature in pencil of the collector Valdemar Cordeiro (revealing a common library provenance with the previous lot), accompanied by old catalog notes (lot 1619 from an auction), factors which, combined with the rarity of the complete work with binding signed Persil, make this lot a collector's item of the highest order and of very high value for bibliophiles dedicated to the subject of Moras.