Maggs Bros.

Over a period of ten years Matsumoto Matsuzo (1870-1936) had embezzled funds in the region of 22,5 million Yen from the Kyushu Electric Tramway Company of which he was president. When the fraud was discovered in 1930, one of the shareholders filed a lawsuit, but the prosecution was suspended due to Matsuzo’s hospitalisation as a result of a stroke. His collection was put up for auction in 1933 by the Kyushu Electric Tramway Company. The first sale was held at the Osaka Arts Club on June 26th 1933. It lists 270 items, including 146 scroll paintings, 22 emaki-mono and books, 8 folding screens, and a large number of craft objects (mostly ceramics) which fetched a total of more than 2.6 million yen. The second auction of 300 items was held on October 11th at the Tokyo Arts Club and fetched 1.8 million Yen. Due to the high quality of the items this lavishly produced catalogue is now an important art reference book in its own right. It includes many important works by Tanomura Chikuden (1777-1835) and Rai Sanyo (1781-1832), as well as paintings by Sesshu and Kenzan. It also features a number of item designated as National Treasures, such as the Nonomura Ninsei (active 17th century) lacquered jar with wisteria patterns (currently owned by the Atami MOA Museum of Art) and Geami’s (1431-1485) “Landscape with a Waterfall” (currently owned by the Nezu Museum). The catalogues are edited by Togari Soshin’an (1893-1940). This is one of the best illustrated auction catalogues to be published in Japan before WWII. 2vol. sets are uncommon with only 6 listed in OCLC.