KAEMPFER'S ALBUM OF FAMOUS SIGHTS OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

YU-YING BROWN

WITHIN the covers of a large and weighty album bound in western style and preserved in The (Western) Manuscript Collections of the (Add. MS. 5252; bearing Sloane's old classification 'Bibliothecae Sloanianae Min. 47') are to be found three groups of curiously varied material. The first consists of a series of fifty Japanese paintings executed in brilhant colours and in gold, each on paper measuring 215 x 322 mm. (ff. 1-50). They depict famous sights of Japan enlivened by vignettes of people engaged in a variety of activities, though mostly pleasure outings or pilgrimages to shrines, temples and scenic spots. The second comprises seven Japanese figure drawings mounted on ff. 53-59, together with three padded applique pictures (ff. 68-70), now identified as oshie (pressed pictures). The third group seems to be entirely Chinese in origin. It consists of twenty-six floral and figure pictures in silk brocade or embroidery (ff. 51, 52, 60-67, i00"i5)- These otherwise unrelated groups of items have one thing in common. They were all smuggled out of Japan in 1692 by the German physician and traveller, Dr Engelbert Kaempfer (1651-1716), and have all, until recently, lain dormant, in pristine condition, among the 's foundation collections.^ This paper seeks to introduce the first and major part of the album only, namely the remarkable set of fifty miniature paintings. These are of unique importance for all historians of Japanese art and culture as well as for specialists in 'Kaempfer studies'. The other two groups, fascinating as they are, deserve separate treatment within the realm of Far Eastern folk-art. Kaempfer is best known for a copiously illustrated two volume History of Japan which was published posthumously in 1727 at London in English translation. It first revealed to the West something of the true nature of this remote and mysterious island empire, in contrast with Marco Polo's hearsay account some five centuries earlier. The sources on which this influential work is based include some sixty Japanese printed books and maps now held in Oriental Collections.^ These, together with the paintings and objets d'art, as well as some natural curiosities, were collected by Kaempfer while he was serving as a medical officer in 1690-92 with the Dutch East Company at Deshima (fig. i). This was an artificial fan-shaped islet built in Nagasaki Bay by the Tokugawa shogunate as a restricted trading post for the Dutch. The only other foreigners allowed in Japan during the greater part of the Edo period (1600-1868), 90 :'.•<}: -••

Fig. I. Kaempfer's drawing of himself and his Japanese attendants as part of the retinue of the Dutch Envoy on a tribute mission to the Shogun at Edo. Sloane MS. 3060, f. 501 when the country was all but closed to the outside world, were a few Chinese merchants. They were likewise confined, in another part of Nagasaki. Consequently, when Sir purchased Kaempfer's collections in 1723-25 from his nephew and heir, he may well have imported into Britain the earliest Japanese library ever to reach Europe. Moreover, the value of this library was greatly enhanced by the inclusion, too, of Kaempfer's voluminous field notes and drawings, the material he later organized into his celebrated manuscript draft for the History of Japan. Like the album of paintings, both the manuscript and notes are preserved in Manuscript Collections (Sloane MSS. 3060 and 3061-3062 respectively). 91 It was in fulfilment of one of the conditions of sale that Sloane had Kaempfer's manuscript, entitled Heutiges Japan or Tresent-day Japan', translated into English at his own expense. This appeared in 1727 as The History of Japan . . . Together with a Description of the Kingdom of Siam under the aegis of the Royal Society, and with the imprimatur of Sloane as President.^ For years during his lifetime, Kaempfer had tried in vain to attract a publisher for this work. But the dry and involved style of his German, as well as the investment needed to touch up and engrave on copper his numerous sketches, had deterred all prospective candidates.'* Sloane entrusted the daunting task of translating and, it would seem, editing as well to his Swiss-born librarian Dr John Gasper Scheuchzer. He was a brilliant scholar who died in Sloane's house two years after the completion of the History. He was then aged twenty-seven. Alas, recent research has called into question the accuracy, not only of his translation, but also of the contents and layout of the History} As will be demonstrated later, Kaempfer's Japanese paintings were to serve as a common model for both the author and translator to copy when illustrating the manuscript and the published version respectively. As such they have a major role to play in unravelling the extent of the discrepancy between Kaempfer's original and Scheuchzer's adaptation. The paintings in question were first listed by Scheuchzer in his long introduction to the History of Japan as among Kaempfer's Japanese books and maps which had come into Sir Hans Sloane's possession, and which he had consulted for his translation. He described them as 'Views of the most celebrated Temples, Castles, and other Buildings of the Japanese, to the number of fifty, done by the Natives, in water colours, all of the same size and make with those engraved in Tab. XVII, XVIII, XXXV and XXXVI, which I have copied out of this very collection'.'^ This somewhat misplaced emphasis on their architectural interest, rather than on their artistic or sociological significance, may have contributed to their being overlooked for so long by curators and historians alike. Another cause of this neglect may simply be that they were overshadowed by the world-famous Chinese colour-prints known universally as the *Kaempfer prints', which were kept in the same album until 1906 when they were moved to what is now the Department of Oriental Antiquities in the British Museum."' Evidently, Kaempfer had acquired these woodcuts, together with the floral pictures in silk brocade and embroidery from the Chinese entrepot at Nagasaki. They are the sort of thing that one would expect to see imported into Japan, as a craze for Chinese art and culture had been encouraged by the shogunate to inculcate Confucian values.^ The fifty Japanese miniatures are, of course, much more than mere architectural drawings. They convey a vivid impression of what Japan was like and how her people lived in the early Edo period. They epitomize the burgeoning fashion for the factual recording of the developing tastes and interests of the new Japanese bourgeoisie: a class for whom a popular literature, including meisho-ki (records of famous places), was just emerging (fig. 3). Moreover, they afford a rare insight into the development of a style of painting now called ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world). With peace and prosperity firmly secured by the Tokugawa military regime from 92 around the Kambun era (1660-72), Japan underwent a phase of rapid urbanization within which popular culture could flourish. When Kaempfer stepped ashore in the era (1688-1713), he was to discover a society that was urbane, pleasure-loving, highly literate, and not destitute of arts: *. . . they rather exceed all other nations in ingenuity and neatness of workmanship'.^ Another aspect of Japan which greatly astonished him was *the great numbers of people who daily travel on the roads'. Indeed, the main highways were always crowded Hike the streets of Europe'. In fact, the modern Japanese love of travel can be traced back to this time in the seventeenth century when, since going overseas was forbidden on pain of death, there was an immense boom in domestic tours. Wherever fine landscapes or sites famous in history, legend or literature were to be found, there the travellers gathered. In Japan, there were many such spots. Long distance travel hitherto undertaken chiefly by daimyo in their periodic attendances at the Shogun's court in Edo (modern Tokyo) became accessible to commoners as well, once the sea and land routes between eastern and western Japan had been completely opened up, shortly before Kaempfer's arrival. This is why, in these miniatures, we see depicted not only the daimyo and their retinues, but people from all walks of life: itinerant merchants, coolies, beggars, couriers, peddlers, farmers, nuns, monks, pilgrims and so on. However, these figures are less numerous than finely attired townspeople enjoying themselves in such settings as famous shrines and temples. So we have here an invaluable pictorial record of a peaceful and relaxed life style as Kaempfer himself observed it. This kind of genre painting belongs to a major mode of Japanese pictorial art known zsfuzokuga (paintings of manners and customs) which flourished from the third quarter of the sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth. It grew out of native Japanese traditions: Yamato-e (literally 'Japanese pictures') of famous places (meisho-e), of seasonal attractions (shiki-e) such as cherry blossom viewing, of such monthly events as festivals and religious ceremonies (tsukinami-e), and of indoor and outdoor pastimes {yuraku- zu). All these thematic characteristics can be seen in Kaempfer's fifty paintings. Stylistically, they are depicted in aerial projection, with abbreviated facial features and schematized cloud bands in gold or silver, the later device being employed for decorative effect as well as to overcome problems of perspective. This distinctive native style of painting was to be inherited, to a greater or lesser degree, by the academic Tosa and Kano schools of painters from the sixteenth century onwards. The former was patronized by the court nobles, and the latter by the samurai ruling class. Indeed, the sliding-door panels and folding screens of many great mansions of the daimyo or courtiers were to be decorated with splendid metsho fuzokuga, the most celebrated examples being the series of Rabuchu rakugai zu (Scenes in and around ) now preserved in various museums and private collections in Japan. Meanwhile, the genre as a whole was gradually supplanted in the 1670s by ukiyo-e with its alluring portrayals of life in the 'red-light' districts and other entertainment quarters, the woodblock prints of which were eventually to become exceedingly popular in the West. The Kaempfer paintings represent a transitional phase in which can be seen the heightened awareness of the 93 pleasures of the secular world that was to find its fullest expression in the ukiyo-e art of the next century. The importance of the Kaempfer paintings can be gauged from some penetrating studies of Tokugawa painting, both early and late, recently carried out by Japanese and foreign scholars. The ravages of man and nature have meant that seventeenth century paintings are now rare, while those that survive are often in a poor state of preservation. Moreover, there is always a question about the authenticity of paintings purported to date from the early Edo period, bearing in mind that copying with intent to forge is freely acknowledged to have taken place. However, there can be no doubt that the Kaempfer paintings are authentic, nor that they date from before 31 October 1692, this being when he left Nagasaki for Europe. Their colours, with green, rose, blue and gold predominant, still glow so brightly after 300 years that when the paintings were shown recently to some Japanese experts, they took them to be eighteenth or nineteenth century. They admitted that they would now have to return home and re-examine those paintings which they have hitherto dismissed on stylistic grounds as being late works. However, the artists of these seventeenth century works remain anonymous. Judging from the use of the small album format'^ (as opposed to magnificent screens or more traditional and stately scrolls) and from the simple naivety of the portrayals, they may well have been executed in the shops of machi-eshi^ or town painters. With demands for fuzokuga increasing markedly after about 1620, they emerged to take the place of the established Tosa and Kano studios. These machi-eshi, with no vested interest in preserving the stylistic purity of either Tosa or Kano, were free either to adopt from these schools or else to invent their own style. They would take commissions from rich merchants or maybe produce en masse for travellers to purchase as souvenirs of the places they had visited. Quite possibly, Kaempfer purchased this set of paintings from such machi-eshi through the good oflices of a Japanese student-interpreter whom he also employed as a servant. He was singled out by Kaempfer in the preface of the History of Japan as being invaluable in providing him with a constant source of information, both verbal and written. He described him as a well-studied young man of about twenty-four who was to remain with him for the whole two years as a special favour granted by the Otona, the chief officer of Deshima. He became fluent in Dutch, was also taught anatomy and physic by Kaempfer, and in 1691 and 1692 accompanied him on the two tribute-paying missions by the Dutch delegation to the Shogun's court at Edo. Apparently, Kaempfer paid this 'servant' the highest annual salary he could afford. He reveals:

In return, I employ'd him to procure me as ample accounts, as possible, of the then state and condition of the Country, its Government, the Imperial Court, the Religions establish'd in the Empire, the History of former ages, and remarkable daily Occurrences. There was not a Book I desired to see, on these and other subjects, which he did not bring to me, and explain to me, out of it, whatever I wanted to know."

94 Ftg. 2a, b. A pass to the Dutch Factory, dated 1692, issued on two attached sheets by the Otona of Deshima to a servant named Nakano Jinzaemon, of Moto Furukawa-machi, Nagasaki. Or. 14480/1

There have been several attempts by modern Japanese historians to establish the identity of this young man, until now to no avail. ^^ Just recently, however, a pass which bears the name 'Nakano Jinzaemon' and which was issued by the Otona of Deshima, has come to light from among several stray Japanese archival documents which seem clearly to have belonged to the Kaempfer collection (fig. 2). Nakano Jinzaemon may well be the anonymous young man whose help was, as Kaempfer frankly acknowledged in his preface, vital to the amassing of information contained in the History of Japan. It is possible that he could be one of the 'sons of the inferior interpreters and other officers' of Deshima who waited upon the Dutch in the daytime as described by Kaempfer under the marginal heading 'Servants of the Dutch' on Vol. I, p. 334, of the History. 95 o O 13 UJ "—' bo O o « O E rt

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The Archery Contest at the Sanjusangen-do: Kaempfer's ink and pencil version of the scene from the manuscript of his 'Heutiges Japan'. Sloane MS. 3060, f. 523 —^—

Fig. s- The Archery Contest at the Sanjusangen-do: Scheuchzer's version of the scene in the History of Japan, Vol. II, Tab. XXXVI Whoever he was, the young man is probably the person responsible for writing a place name on the back of each painting, thus greatly facilitating the identification of the exact scene depicted.^^ The brush calligraphy used for this closely resembles that which often appears in the two volumes of field notes which Kaempfer compiled while in Japan. Evidently, the young man noted down or drew things on the spot when answering Kaempfer's enquiries or verifying his observations. As might be expected, most of the fifty famous places are in and around Kyoto, the capital for eight hundred years until the Tokugawa shogunate set up a new capital in Edo in 1603. Since a recognized national beauty spot was often chosen as the site of a sacred building, the inclination was to use the same name for both. In consequence, a good many of the shrines and Buddhist temples are simply called by their respective place names, without the designation 7V, or tera for temples, 7'm> for shrines, or do for halls. The fifty sights can be identified as follows: i. Saiho-ji; 2. Waka-no-; 3. Miyajima [al. Itsukushima Shrine] (pi. V); 4. Kanekata-ji [aL Kinkaku-ji]; 5. Gion; 6. Hime-no-Miya; 7. Matsunoo; 8. Yasaka; 9. Mieido; 10. Mishima; 11. Tango Kiredo [al. Amanohashidate]; 12. Inari [jinja]; 13. Tatsuta [jinja]; 14. Chion-in; 15. Matsushima (pi. VI); 16. Toyokuni [al. Hokoku jinja]; 17. Kurama Fugooroshi; 18. Omuro; 19. Byodo-in; 20. Takao; 21. Shirahige [jinja]; 22. Saga Shakado; 23. Nara Kofuku-ji; 24. Mio-no-Matsubara; 25. Yoshimine[-ji]; 26. Atago [jinja]; 27. Ishiyama[-dera]; 28. Toji; 29. Sumiyoshi; 30. Horin[-ji]; 31. Nishi Hongan[-ji]; 32. Mitarashi; 33. Miidera; 34. Hatsuse [al. Hasedera]; 35. Asakusa; 36. Iwaya[-ji]; 37. Shijo Shibai [Kawara]; 38. Nara Kasuga; 39. Sanjusangen[-d6] (pi. VIII); 40. Daibutsu[-den] [ai. Hoko-ji]; 41. Maruyama; 42. Rikyu ; 43. Senbon Nenbutsu; 44. Ise Suzuka[-toge (pass)]; 45. Nijo-jo; 46. Yawata [al. Iwashimizu Hachiman-gu]; 47. Daitoku-ji; 48. Yoshida [jinja]; 49. Kamigamo [jinja] (pi. VII); and 50. Imamiya. The terms in square brackets have been added here to aid modern readers who might not be famihar with the shortened forms or less commonly known names as written by the anonymous Japanese so many years ago. For instance, to call the scene on f 39 Sanjusangen-do, rather than simply Sanjusangen, is to make the place immediately recognizable as the temple hall in Kyoto celebrated for its iooi individual Avalokitesvara (kannon) Buddhist images wood-carved in the thirteenth century, as well as for the ancient archery contest. Even so, with such names as Kurama Fugooroshi (f 17) and Mitarashi (f. 32), it remains uncertain whether they were named after certain festivals or customs that were well-known in Japan in Kaempfer's time but now rarely or never held or practised. Thus, Kurama Fugooroshi could well be the term used for the basket in which a kind of flintstone ground in mountain villages (such as those on or around Mt Kurama, north of Kyoto) was sold to travellers passing through the valley below. As depicted in the painting, this was done by lowering the stone down from the mountain top by a ropeway. Then again, Mitarashi (f. 32), which literally means 'purification with water', could be taken to indicate any river in the vicinity of a shrine where pilgrims might cleanse themselves before entering the sacred site. Alternatively, it could be a particular purification ceremony such as were held annually at the Kitano or Shimogamo shrines in Kyoto. However, the salient characteristics of some of these localities are invariably, albeit often symbolically, portrayed, which enables us to identify them more easily: for example, the festival float is associated with Gion (f. 5); the kabuki theatre with Shijo Kawara (f. 37); the horse racing with Kamigamo shrine (f. 49) (pi. VII); the 'drum bridge with Sumiyoshi (f. 29); the watermill and tea picking with Byodo-in of Uji (f. 19); Mt Fuji with Mio-no-Matsubara (f. 24); and so on. All the examples so far cited are from Kyoto, except for the last three. This is an indication of just how heavily concentrated around Kyoto the famous sights of Japan are. In fact, if we include Waka-no-Tenjin (f. 2) and Hime-no-Miya (f. 6), the exact locations of which have yet to be identified, then thirty-five out of the fifty meisho pictured are from Kyoto and its environs. The ancient capital Nara can claim only four, while the rest originated in other parts of the country as follows: Osaka, Edo (the new capital), Uji and Shikoku, one each; and Omi (now in the Shiga prefecture around Lake Biwa) and Shizuoka, two each. Finally, there are the three designated 'most beautiful scenic spots of Japan' (Nikon sankei), namely Matsushima (f. 15) (pi. VI), which is celebrated for its breathtaking view of over 260 tiny islands, in north-east Honshu; Amanohashidate (f. 11), for the three kilometre sandbar shown with gnarled pine trees against the Sea of Japan; and Miyajima (f. 3) (fig. 3, pi. V), for the Itsukushima Shrine built out into the Bay of Hiroshima with its distinctive offshore giant vermilion torit or shrine gateway. The inclusion of all three of the Nihon sankei is interesting in that Kaempfer himself could never have set foot in Matsushima nor Amanohashidate since each lay well outside the route of the two tribute-paying expeditions he participated in. Miyajima, on the other hand, may just have been sighted by the Dutch retinue as they proceeded by boat through the Inland Sea, before going overland along the Tokaido (eastern coastal highway). But why were the *Great Shrine' at Ise, the Kiyomizu Temple, Mt Yoshino, Todai-ji or Zenko-ji (to name but a few of the most popular places of pilgrimage and recreation) not included.? In particular, the exclusion of Ise and Kiyomizu is curious, seeing that they were given full coverage in Book Five of the History of Japan which deals exclusively with his journeys to Edo. Indeed, Kaempfer was fascinated by the great multitude of pilgrims on the road at all times. About this he said: 'The Japanese are very much addicted to pilgrimages. They make several and to different places. The first and chief goes to Isje . . .'. The Ise mairi (pilgrimage) was again described in great detail in another chapter on Japanese religions. Another anomaly in the selection of locations is that both the Toyokuni shrine (f. 16) and the Daibutsu Hall of the Hoko-ji temple (f. 40) in Kyoto, which were built for or by Shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi around 1590, would have been in a state of decline when Kaempfer first arrived on the scene, as a result of a shift in political fortunes against the Toyotomi camp. Despite several attempts at rebuilding, neither ever recovered their original glory. Yet, Kaempfer described the now vanished Hall of 99 Daibutsu (or 'Daibods* as he called it) as the most impressive he had ever seen. The hall depicted shows the facade when first rebuilt in 1612. That year thus becomes, in fact, the earliest the album could possibly date from.^*. Kaempfer evidently regarded this set of pictures—rich as they are in topographical, sociological and architectural information—as ideal material to illustrate the meticulous accounts provided in Book Five of the journeys to the court of Edo. This is by far the most extensive section of the History and the most widely quoted part of the whole work. It was to remain the standard Western source on these Dutch tribute missions until the publications of Philipp Franz von Siebold in the nineteenth century." For the Dutch traders whose lives in Deshima were otherwise tantamount to a stringent form of imprisonment, these excursions provided virtually the only opportunity to see the country and make contact with scholars eager to question them about Western science as well as with ordinary Japanese people, albeit under the watchful eyes of the officers who accompanied them. Accordingly, in Kaempfer's draft manuscript are to be found several pencil sketches, in his own hand, of views copied from the paintings. The two most complete represent Sanjusangen-do (f. 39) (fig. 4) and Daibutsu-den (f. 40) whereas Sumiyoshi (f. 29) and Tango Kiredo or Amanohashidate (f. 11) are only outlined, while from Shirahige jinja (f. 21) only a detail is copied.**^ The last consists of groups of travellers on the road and on the sea, with no landscape. The first four sketches would seem to correspond to those listed at the end of his manuscript of the History ofjapan^ which he had earmarked as illustrations for Book Five. Indeed, as early as 1712, he had announced in the introduction to his Amoenitatum Exoticarum that he had several substantial works ready for printing, and that among them was a manuscript entitled Heutiges Japan for which he was ready to supply forty illustrations. ^"^ Sadly, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, he died four years later without attracting a publisher. Virtually all the illustrations, amounting to some 160 individual drawings, big or small, eventually engraved and reproduced in the published version of the History of Japan had been redrawn by Scheuchzer. In his introduction to the History^ the latter stated:

As to the Cuts, but very few were left finished by the Author: All the rest I have drawn with my own hand, either from his unfinished originals, or from the prints and drawings of the Japanese, in the Collection of Sir Hans Sloane, and if they should appear to some to fall short in point of elegance, though even as to that I have taken all possible care, I have the satisfaction at least, that I can vouch for the truth and accuracy of them, and their conformity with the originals. ^^

Yet very few of Scheuchzer's drawings did conform with Kaempfer's originals either in the order of layout or in artistic interpretation. The discrepancies are most marked in his adaptations from the set of Japanese paintings. For one thing, only two of four sketches which Kaempfer planned to use for Book Five were incorporated. And even these two (Diabutsu-den and Sanjusangen-do) had been completely revamped by

100 Scheuchzer so as to fit a stereotyped western conception of the East (see pi. VIII, and figs. 4, 5).!^ Furthermore, he added two new views which he copied directly from the Japanese paintings. He used these to illustrate not scenes on the way to Edo but m Book Three which deals with Japanese religious beliefs. Kaempfer himself had not intended to illustrate this book with any of the drawings from the album. The pictures in question are Matsushima (f 15), the celebrated beauty spot in north- east Japan mentioned above, and Yoshida Shrine in Kyoto (f 48).^° The latter was the centre of the Yoshida branch of Shintoism and celebrated for its distinctive octagonal hall. Without Kaempfer's drawings or plan as a guide, Scheuchzer in both cases made the wrong choice of places for the themes he was trying to illustrate: the temples at Matsushima are Buddhist not Shinto; and Yoshida shrine he incorrectly captioned 'Tensio Daisin at Isie' (i.e. the shrine of the Sun Goddess, otherwise known as the Grand Shrine of Ise) which, as implied earlier, was not even included among the original fifty.^^ However, the most startling display of Scheuchzer's idiosyncratic ingenuity as an artist for the History of Japan is a view of Kiyomizu temple drawn entirely from his own imagination. It looks more like a group of British factory buildings from the last century than the elegant temple complex it is, famous for its unusual *stage' architecture supported by wooden stilts.^^ No doubt, Scheuchzer based this drawing on the descriptions given in the manuscript by Kaempfer. But as he had never been to Japan, he could not visualize how it might look. Unfortunately, there was no picture of Kiyomizu in the Japanese album for him to copy and the one drawn by Kaempfer was too sketchy to be of any use. Thus the rediscovery of Kaempfer's album of seventeenth century Japanese paintings enables us to understand far better the methods of preparation for publication of the History of Japan ^ the book which for over 260 years has been regarded as the most authentic eye-witness account of pre-modern Japan. It has also unearthed something of a 'time capsule' through which we snatch a rare glimpse of life in that country, as Kaempfer himself observed it. Finally, for historians of Japanese pictorial art, it can be the long-sought yardstick by which to reassess all those similarly-styled paintings of uncertain vintage held in Japan and elsewhere.

1 For the first brief introduction to the album, 79) editions. All were reprinted at least once. The see Yu-Ying Brown, Japanese Book Illustration first complete Japanese edition of the History did (London, 1988), pp. 31-3; and for the first public not appear until 1973. This was Imai Tadashi's display of some of the items, see British Library Nihon shi (Tokyo, 1973). However, partial exhibition leaflet, Byways in Japanese Illustration Japanese translations from the Dutch edition (Sept. 1988). appeared as early as 1801. A facsimile edition of 2 K. B. Gardner, 'Engelbert Kaempfer's Japanese the first English edition of the History was Library', Asia Major, ii, pts. 1-2 (1959), pp. 74- brought out in Japan by the publisher Koseikaku 8; Yu-Ying Brown, Japanese Language Collec- of Tokyo in 1929. All quotations from the tions in the British Library (London, 1988). History in this article will be based on this 3 The History of Japan (London, 1727; reprinted facsimile and cited as History. Glasgow, 1906) subsequently appeared in 4 In 1712, Kaempfer did publish in Lemgo, his French (1729), Dutch (1729) and German (1777- home town in Germany, a 900 page miscellany of

IOI Persian, Japanese and Indian medical, botanical at the margins of some of them. However, closer and other topics, including treatises on acupunc- examination has led to the conclusion that they ture and moxibustion. This was entitled Amoeni- were executed as fifty individual miniatures tatum Exoticarum ('exotic delights' or 'exotic originally, being trimmed and mounted in the titbits'). It was written in Latin. Some parts of album after they had arrived in Britain. The this work were translated by Scheuchzer and writing consists of remnants of place names, not incorporated into the first of the two appendices descriptive texts. in the History. 11 History, vol. i, p. iv. 5 Beatrice M. Bodart-Bailey, 'Kaempfer resto'd', 12 For attempts by Seiho Arima and Fujihiko Monumenta Nipponica, xliii, no. i (1988), pp. i- Sekiba, see Jiro Numata, 'Nihon ni okeru - :ii,\ 'Preliminary report on the manuscripts of peru to sono eikyo', Engelbert Kaempfer {1651- Engelbert Kaempfer in the British Library', 1716), Phtlipp Franz von Siebold {1796-1866), Japanese Studies: Proceedings of the British Gedenkschrift (Tokyo, 1966), p. 174; also cf Library Colloquium on Resources for Japanese Jujiro Koga, Nagasaki Yogaku-shi (Nagasaki, Studies (London, forthcoming). Dr Bodart- 1967), vol. iii, pp. 193-4. It is interesting to note Bailey is at present preparing for publication a that Professor Numata in the above-mentioned new Enghsh translation of Kaempfer's original article offers the following suggestion; 'It is manuscript. possible that when Kaempfer's papers and col- 6 History^ vol. i, p. !i. lections in the British Museum are searched 7 Formerly Add. MS. 5252, ff. 71-99; see Basil thoroughly, the key to solve this identity mystery Gray, 'Sloane and the Kaempfer Collection', may be found'. According to Nagasaki kenshi: British Museum Quarterly^ xYiii (1953), pp. Taigai kosho-hen (Nagasaki, 1986), p. 495, passes 20-3. to Deshima were made of wood with inscriptions 8 It was the beauty and technical excellence of on both sides. Black seals were applied by colour woodcuts such as those imported to Japan branding. The exact status of the pass found in in the seventeenth century that were the Kaempfer Collection must, therefore, await to inspire Japanese artists and block-cutters to comparative study with those preserved in the copy, develop and refine the medium beyond Nagasaki Prefectural Library. the dreams of its Chinese pioneers, from the 13 Kaempfer himself also transcribed some of the mid-eighteenth century onwards. place names on the back in roman letters in his 9 History, vol. ii, Appendix I, p. 61. This essay own distinctive handwriting. in support of a continuation of the national 14 Tatsusaburo Hayashiya et al. (eds.), Kinsei seclusion policy was translated into Japanese fuzoku zufu (Tokyo, 1982), vol. ix, pp. 141 from the Dutch version by Shizuki Tadao, a -6. Nagasaki interpreter in 1801. Entitled - 15 Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866), ron, it was widely circulated in Japan, especially Kaempfer's compatriot and like him a physician, by those campaigning for policy continuation in was also to use the the face of the repeated foreign demands for free as the path to a new knowledge of Japan. He trade in the closing stages of the Tokugawa rule. followed in Kaempfer's footsteps at the Deshima Kaempfer's famous concluding sentence (vol. ii, factory for six years, from 1823 to 1829. How- Appendix I, p. 75) reads '. . . their Country was ever, his plan to smuggle out Japanese books never in a happier condition than it now is, and maps nearly cost him his life. Some of the governed by an arbitrary Monarch [sic], shut up, treasures from his famous first tour, together and kept from all Commerce and Communi- with almost the complete library he assembled cation with foreign nations'. See also Seiichi on his return to Japan thirty years later (1859- Iwao, 'Doku i Kaempfer no Nihon-shi to so 61), are now in the British Library; see Yu- no Nihon shisokai ni oyoboshita eikyo', Nihon Ying Brown, 'The Von Siebold Collections in Gakushiin kiyo, xxv, no. i (1967), pp. 1-21. Tokugawa Japan', British Library Journal, i 10 At first, these paintings were thought to have (1975). PP- 163-70; ii (1976), pp. 38-55. been cut into individual pieces from a scroll or 16 Sloane MS. 3060, ff. 515^, 523, 527, 528 and scrolls, seeing that there were signs of rolling 540- creases and fragments of writing still remaining 17 E. Kaempfer, Geschichte und Beschreibung von

102 Japan, ed. C. W. Dohm (Lemgo, ill-]-% re- Mishima (f. 225) which Scheuchzer copied from printed Stuttgart, 1964), vol. i, pp. xxxiv-vi. the Japanese original but never used for the 18 History, vol. i, p. Hi. History. 19 Ibid., Tab. XXXV and XXXVL 21 Ibid., Tab. XVIII. 20 Ibid., Tab. XVII. For Scheuchzer's original 22 Ibid., Tab. XXXIV. For Kaempfer's own very drawing of Matsushima copied from the rough and incomplete sketch of the Kiyomizu Japanese painting, see Add. MS. 5232, f. 223. temple see Sloane MS. 3060, f. 525. In this manuscript is also preserved a view of

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