An Actor Applies Makeup in his Dressing Room - Yoshimune Arai Art Print

Hasegawa Takejirō (1853–1938) was the Tokyo publisher who invented the chirimen-bon—Japan's exquisite crêpe-paper book—and became Meiji Japan's most daring cultural ambassador. Emerging just as the Meiji Restoration reopened Japan to the world after centuries of near-isolation, he fused traditional ukiyo-e woodblock printing with Western book formats and multilingual text. His Japanese Fairy Tale Series, launched in 1885, drew translators Basil Hall Chamberlain and Lafcadio Hearn alongside ukiyo-e masters Kobayashi Eitaku and Suzuki Kason, their cloth-like pages carrying Momotaro and the Tongue-Cut Sparrow into English, French, German, and Spanish households.

Hasegawa successfully merged traditional and modern technologies, balancing Japanese tales, illustrations, and binding against Western reading conventions, producing objects halfway between souvenir and artwork. As Japonisme swept Western art circles, his crêpe-paper volumes became coveted collector's items—Van Gogh among their admirers. His twenty-eight-volume series and illustrated calendars transformed Japanese folklore into a global publishing phenomenon, seeding the West's imagination with Japan's ancient storytelling.