Manuscripts
Nagasaki hyosho zu - Karafune hyosho zu
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- Description
- These two volumes contain 70 single or double-page gouache plates and record the life of Dutch and Chinese merchants in Nagasaki, Japan, in the early 19th century. The first volume focuses on the Dutch living in Dejima and includes historical events such as the visit of Russian envoy Nikolai Rezanov, cultural practices such as the fumie ritual which the Japanese used to detect Japanese Christians, and the infrastructure surrounding the port. The volume also documents Dutch daily life such as medical procedures, clothing, meals, and phonetic renderings of the Dutch alphabet and numbers. Illustrations of Javanese and Southeast Asian servants and laborers are also depicted throughout the first volume. The second volume focuses on the Chinese merchants and documents their ships, warehouses, residential compounds, tools, theatrical culture, religious objects, and burial sites. There is a detailed three-page illustration of the Tojin-yashiki, the walled enclosure where the Chinese merchants lived. The volumes are bound in restored silk-covered flexible boards that have been re-stitched, with some minor restoration; the two volumes are housed in a wooden box with a fabric slipcover.
![Shokubutsu Zu : [manuscript], [approximately 1800]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Frail.huntington.org%2FIIIF3%2FImage%2F22APN4QGA5QT%2Ffull%2F%5E360%2C%2F0%2Fdefault.jpg&w=750&q=75)