Page 6 - EXPOTIME!Sept2017

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Wolf Schiantir

What did 17 cent. Japan look like?
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Kaempfer's album of Famous Sights: The first consists of a series of 50 Japanese paintings
a sunken treasure discovered executed in brillant colours and in gold. They depict fa-
mous sights of Japan enriched by vignettes of people en-
The British Museum houses many a treasures. One of gaged in different activities, though mostly pleasure out-
them is an album bought by a German doctor in Japan ings or pilgrimages to shrines, temples and scenic spots.
in the 17 cent. It was unrecognized in London until the The second comprises seven Japanese figure drawings,
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late 80s. It shows paintings of public sites in Japan; most together with three padded applique pictures, now
of them can be identified still today. 1 identified as pressed pictures (oshie). The third group is
Chinese in origin and consists of 26 floral pictures in silk
There were at least two reasons why this important brocade or embroidery. This material was all smuggled
source of ancient Japan was unrecognized for centuries. out of Japan in 1692 by the German physician and trav-
The album was bound in western style and preserved eller, Dr. Engelbert Kaempfer (1651-1716).
in The (Western) Manuscript Collections of the British
Library. It contains curiously three types of material.
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Kawahara Keiga: Philipp Franz von Siebold with a telescope (teresukoppu), Dutch personnel and Siebolds Japanese wife Ku-
sumoto Otaki with their baby-daughter Kusumoto Ine watching an incoming Dutch sailing ship at Dejima. The ship is towed
by many stringed rowing boats. Coloured woodcut, made between 1811 and 1842.
Source: Wikimedia Commons/ MIT Peabody Museum Essex

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EXPOTIME!, issue August/September 2017