Sekka Zusetu
Sekka Zusetsu (雪華図説) is a figure collection written by Doi Toshitsura (Japanese Kanji : 土井 利位), the 4th Daimyo of Koga Domain(古河藩) in 1832.
Overview
Koga Domain was located the center of the Kanto Plain. Unlike other domains, the people in Koga Domain had much snow, so the territory of the domain was good place to observe snowflake.
Doi Toshitsura, the 4th Daimyo of Koga Domain started observing snowflake as his hobby with his own microscope which was imported from Netherlands, and he wrote illusts and studies about snowflake into a book(Sekka Zusetu). This figure collection of his is highly valued today in Japan as the first Japanese figure collection of snowflake.
It's said that Toshitsura had many troubles to observe snowflake because snowflake need -10 to -15 Celsius degrees temperature to hold their correct shapes. So Toshitsura had to observe them under very cold temperature.
This book was written for him and his family(Doi Clan, 土井氏), but it had great influence on Japanese textile-patterns. As soon as he wrote the book, snowflake-pattern(雪華模様) became popular among ordinary people in Edo.
This figure collection is now available on Internet().
How Toshitsura observed
- Put a cloth colored black outside at night when it seems to snow to make it cold.
- Receive snowflake by the cloth(see 1).
- If you get snowflake, pick them up carefully and put into a cup colored black.
- Be careful not to breath on them, and observe them by using microscope.