PreviousThe Pulverer Collection, acquired in its entirety by the Freer Gallery of Art in 2007, includes numerous rare and pristine examples of Japanese illustrated books produced in the Edo period and beyond. For more than thirty years Dr. Gerhard Pulverer, a renowned medical researcher in Germany, and his wife Rosemarie traveled the world and assembled the collection. Their holdings of more than 900 titles encompass almost 2,200 volumes that range in date from the early seventeenth century to the 1970s. Today the Pulverer Collection is regarded as one of the most outstanding and comprehensive collections of Japanese illustrated books outside Japan.
This site marks the initial phase of an ongoing project to make all of the volumes available online. Cataloguing is now in progress, and we are also adding short scholarly entries for many of the titles (available on the commentary tab for individual titles). We are adding new titles every month and are expanding information about these books through these essays and other features. Please note that this is a work in progress–we are regularly making updates to improve the site.
We encourage you to return often and to offer feedback on the project. Generous support from the Getty Foundation through the Online Scholarly Catalogue Initiative (OSCI), with additional support from the Anne van Biema Endowment Fund, has enabled the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery to make the Pulverer Collection available to researchers, bibliophiles, and art lovers around the globe.
