Chats on Novelties of Foreign Lands (Kōmōzatsuwa 紅毛雑話) : [volume 3]
A woodblock-printed Japanese volume from Edo in 1787, compiled by Morishima Chūryō, presenting Dutch-derived knowledge of foreign natural history, with Swammerdam's microscopy of insects as its subject. The pictures are ink line drawings of insects and their life stages, labelled with small kana and kanji notes arranged in ruled columns. A designer might take from them the clean, schematic way early scientific plates break a subject into specimen, larva and detail views.
![Picture 1 of 5 from Chats on Novelties of Foreign Lands (Kōmōzatsuwa 紅毛雑話) : [volume 3] (1787), leaf 18](https://img.insideoutlibrary.com/img/200/met-p16028coll7_3612-18-1.webp)
![Picture 2 of 5 from Chats on Novelties of Foreign Lands (Kōmōzatsuwa 紅毛雑話) : [volume 3] (1787), leaf 19](https://img.insideoutlibrary.com/img/200/met-p16028coll7_3612-19-1.webp)
![Picture 3 of 5 from Chats on Novelties of Foreign Lands (Kōmōzatsuwa 紅毛雑話) : [volume 3] (1787), leaf 20](https://img.insideoutlibrary.com/img/200/met-p16028coll7_3612-20-1.webp)
![Picture 4 of 5 from Chats on Novelties of Foreign Lands (Kōmōzatsuwa 紅毛雑話) : [volume 3] (1787), leaf 21](https://img.insideoutlibrary.com/img/200/met-p16028coll7_3612-21-1.webp)
![Picture 5 of 5 from Chats on Novelties of Foreign Lands (Kōmōzatsuwa 紅毛雑話) : [volume 3] (1787), leaf 22](https://img.insideoutlibrary.com/img/200/met-p16028coll7_3612-22-1.webp)