This is the ninth part of the successful series supervised by Aiko Mabuchi, Director General, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, which provide art historians and students with the primary source materials related to the reception of Japanese arts from late nineteenth-century to early twentieth century in the Western societies. All materials are reproduced in facsimile reprint and include many plates and illustrations in colour.

This new collection includes writings by James Lord Bowes on Japanese arts. Bowes (1834–1899) was a wealthy Japanese art collector in Liverpool and was appointed the first foreign-born Japanese Consul in Great Britain. He opened Bowes Museum which was the first dedicated museum of Japanese art in the western world and is regarded as one of the most important figures in the British reception of Japanese art and culture in the Victorian era.

Volume 1–4 of the five-volume reprint set covers his writings on Japan and Japanese arts and the catalogues of Bowes museum which he edited and published himself. Also included is a very rare catalogue of auction which was held after his death and is the only source of information of one of the largest collection of Japanese art of the time. The last volume is a facsimile reprint of the monumental work of Japanese ceramic art which was originally published in two volumes and includes approx.110 plates in colour.