1810 Bunkindo Ukiyo-e View of Dutch Ship

A captivating c. 1810 ukiyo-e woodblock depiction of a Dutch ship of the sort that traded at Nagasaki during the Tokugawa Era policy of isolation (sakoku), a classic theme in the Nagasaki-e genre of woodblock prints. Although strictly closed to traders from most countries, Japan did conduct some (strictly controlled) foreign trade with Dutch and Chinese merchants at Nagasaki, which permitted a degree of foreign interaction and exchange, as evidenced by this work.

A Closer Look

The view depicts a Dutch ship, using the characters 阿蘭陀, approximating the pronunciation of 'Holland.' Text at top-right describes its dimensions, capacity, the number of sails and cannons, and so on. At top-left is a table of distances between Nagasaki and distant foreign (異國) ports, starting with those closest to Nagasaki and moving to those further away:

1. Taiwan (interestingly, using Japanese kana instead of kanji, タイワン)
2. Luzon (that is, Manila ロソン)
3. Kampuchea (カボウチヤ)
4. 'Kumontara' (クモンタラ), perhaps Krung Tai, that is, Ayutthaya
5. Jakarta (シヤカタラ)
6. 'Soransu' (ソランス), most likely derived from the Dutch pronunciation of Ceylon
7. England (イキリス)
8. Portugal (ホルトカル)
9. Holland (ヲランタ)
10. Russia (presumably St. Petersburg, ヲロシヤ)

The distance to St. Petersburg makes sense, given the necessity to sail all the way around Europe and through the North and Baltic Seas to reach it, but the fact that England is listed as closer to Japan (by boat) than Portugal reveals the limitations of Japanese geographic knowledge.

Nagasaki-e (長崎繪)

Nagasaki-e is a sub-genre of ukiyo-e woodblock prints that took the interactions between Japanese and foreigners (Chinese and Dutch) at Nagasaki as its subject, along with related subjects, such as exotic foreign goods brought by foreign traders. The genre became popular starting in the 1720s, gaining popularity in the 1750s, and reflects a distinct Chinese influence, both in the material used (initially 'Chinese-style' drafting paper called gasenshi in Japanese) and in style (resembling Chinese nenga or nianhua 年画, traditionally produced for Lunar New Year celebrations). Though usually indicating the printer, the artists of these works are generally unknown, likely because they were amateurs and at least sometimes were foreigners. Still, Nagasaki-e proved popular among the Japanese, often being sold as souvenirs for visitors to the port city. They provided an important peek into the outside world for Japanese, at least of a certain social class, during the Tokugawa period and presaged the later Yokohama-e that became wildly popular in the 1860s.

A Small Opening to the World

For most of the Edo or Tokugawa Era (1600 - 1868), Japan operated under Sakoku (鎖国, 'Locked Country') policies, where foreign trade and interaction were allowed with the Dutch and Chinese at Nagasaki (more specifically at an artificial island in Nagasaki Bay called Dejima, 出島) and through other tightly constrained channels, but otherwise were forbidden to prevent potentially troublesome foreign ideas like Christianity from undermining Tokugawa rule. Nevertheless, some Japanese intellectuals, particularly of the 'Dutch Learning' (Rangaku) School, were aware of developments in the outside world and the Tokugawa became quietly but increasingly concerned about foreign threats. Whalers, adventurers, and would-be traders from Russia, Europe, and the United States appeared on Japan's shores with increasing frequency in the late 18th and early 19th centuries (including a group of American ships sailing under a Dutch flag during the Napoleonic Wars).

Publication History and Census

No publication information is provided aside from the seal of the printer Bunkindō (文錦堂) at bottom-left. Given the known works of that firm and based on the content, it can be roughly dated to the early 19th century. This view went through several printings and was sometimes paired with a similar depiction of a Chinese ship (also sold by us), although the two are usually seen separately in institutional collections. Outside of Japan, an example of this printing of the view is held by the Dutch Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, while examples of a slightly different alternate printing, also by Bunkindō, are held by the University of California San Francisco and the Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen. Within Japan, examples of this view are held by the Kobe City Museum, Kuboso Memorial Museum of Arts, Waseda University, and Tsurumi University. The view appears to be based on an original (of the same title) by Hayashi Shihei (林子平, 1738 - 1793), one of 18th century Japan's great scholars of the outside world, and there are multiple variations on the view by different printers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, usually with the perspective and the text above and around the ship changing slightly. However, these are all quite rare today.