I had known for some time of Georges Bigot as a caricaturist for and contributor to the nineteenth-century illustrated journal The Graphic, but it was not until at a London book fair some years ago I came across a copy of Bigot's Croquis Japonais that I realized what a fine draughtsman and artist he was. I was so impressed by his life-like drawings that I began to look for other albums drawn by him, wondering whether they might form the basis for a book devoted to his works, but I soon discovered how difficult they were to find even in the British Library.

I then learnt through my friend Terry Bennett who specializes in old photographs of Japan, China and Korea that the largest collection in private hands was that of Christian Polak, an influential French businessman in Tokyo who was also a Japanese scholar. Terry kindly put me in touch with Christian Polak and we duly arranged to meet in Paris. On this occasion he showed me some of his treasures including oil paintings by Georges Bigot. I was much impressed and thought we should try to produce a book about Bigot and his works.

Paul Norbury who specializes in scholarly books about the Far East was interested and in due course we put together this volume. Christian and I hope that it will show not only the breadth and depth of Georges Bigot's work but will also demonstrate his overall skills as a great artist. So far, he has not received the acclaim he deserves in France, his home country. It may seem ironic that despite the extent of cultural relations between France and Japan this book should first appear in an English edition for which I have translated Christian's French text into English.

During his lifetime Bigot produced many thousands of paintings in oils and watercolours, as well as drawings, engravings, gouaches and lithographs. This volume can only present a selection of his life's work. In making this selection we have tried to demonstrate the variety of his talents as revealed in his career as an artist. This centred on Japan and Japanese themes are its main focus.