Studies on the Christian Relics in Japan. It’s almost impossible to find first hand material on this subject and this volume is loaded with photos.

According to scholar Martin Nogueira Ramos, “I can’t tell you if it’s a rare book, but it’s related to the discovery of hidden Christian artifacts/books in the region of Takatsuki (Sendaiji), former domain of the Christian lord Takayama Ukon, in the beginning of the 1920s. There is a small interesting museum there. Some famous Christian scrolls were discovered at that time (the image of FX kept now at the Kobe museum; the 15 mysteries of the Rosary kept at the Kyoto U. museum). In 1920s, the Hidden Christian community had already disappeared; only three elderly women (more than 80 years old) remembered about the prayers (orasho).”

According to scholar Noelle Tinsley,
“Very interesting as a source of the earliest accounts of some of these Japanese-Christian artistic and decorative works that have been studied in often quite different ways since then. This is from 1922-23; the Anglo-Japanese Alliance ended in 1923, but that period had brought some interesting religious associations between Japanese religions and Christianity in Britain. The writings in this book, and its scholarly milieu, might be interesting to think about in this context. In March next year I’m giving a talk at the College Art Association on “Diaspora (Made) of Replicas: Stone Art, Buddhism, Christianity, and Zionism” which focuses on this precise period and its interest in Christianity in Japan.”

Patrick Hayes, “WorldCat shows this at the University of Chicago and Cambridge University, so yes, it may not be rare but it is certainly scarce. It’s also in Harvard’s Fine Arts Library (oddly, not the Fung). And, by the looks of it, a prewar study on Christian material culture in Japan would be important for Sinologists as well as church historians. This title isn’t even in Columbia’s East Asia library.”