We recently found we have a rare copy of Ando Hiroshige’s Fifty-Three Stations on the Tokaido (Jimbutsu (Mankind) Tokaido), Muraichi, 1852. Chuban tateye. As if that isn’t good enough, it may have been the personal copy of Albert Einstein (1879-1955), who traveled to Japan in 1922. The library has a number of ephemeral items from that trip. http://diglib.princeton.edu/ead/getEad?id=ark:/88435/9880vr03d.
At the back of this volume is a portrait of Einstein by the cartoonist Okamoto Ippei (1886-1948), done in December of 1922 in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. The artist was fluent in English, having traveled a great deal, and was actively publishing his cartoons in several magazines and newspapers at the time. We hold a number of his published books, such as Yama to umi (Mountain and ocean) ([Osaka]. Osaka Asahi Shinbunsha. 1926) Cotsen Children’s Library (CTSN) Non-Roman — Japanese 38189. He must have made Einstein’s acquaintance and agreed to do this caricature in the man’s book.
