Views of Kyoto and Nagasaki
Views of Kyoto and Nagasaki
Couldn't load pickup availability
- ✓Shipping with real-time tracking
- ✓Handmade in 4-5 working days
or a special size? • Chat with us
The artwork
Bottom centre, a fan of houses sits walled in by the sea: this is Dejima, the man-made island in Nagasaki that for more than two centuries was home to the only Europeans allowed to trade with Japan. You receive it printed on handmade Amalfi paper, in a handmade frame.
- Kyoto, the island of Dejima at Nagasaki and two views of Sakai on a single sheet.
- In the large format it holds the wall of a study on its own.
- A gift for anyone who has been to Japan or wants to go.
It was built between 1634 and 1636 for Portuguese merchants, and the story goes that the shogun Iemitsu showed its shape by opening his fan. Once the Portuguese had been expelled, the Dutch of the East India Company were moved here in 1641: about twenty men, linked to the city by a single guarded bridge. Once a year their chief travelled to Edo, today's Tokyo, to pay homage to the shogun. In 1691 the German physician Engelbert Kaempfer went with him, and the shogun Tsunayoshi wanted the Dutch to dance and sing for the court: Kaempfer sang too.
This is plate 56 of the fifth volume of the Atlas Historique, the seven-volume encyclopedia published in Amsterdam and attributed to Henri Abraham Châtelain: a copper engraving from 1719. At the top is a panorama of Meaco, from the Japanese miyako, “the capital”, as Europeans then called Kyoto; beside the text are two views of Sakai and two scenes, a wedding and the persecution of Christians. The view of Dejima is copied from a 1669 book by Arnoldus Montanus, a Dutch minister who never left Europe. The copy reproduced here is part of the David Rumsey Map Collection.
Above a shelf of travel books or in the study of someone who loves Japan, it is a gift for anyone who has been to Kyoto or wants to go. And down at the foot of the sheet, the fan of Dejima is still open on the sea.
Unique quality material
Print on handmade Amalfi paper
Sheet size: 40 x 60 cm (15.7 x 23.6 in)
With frame: 42 x 62 cm (16.5 x 24.4 in)
Material: artwork printed on very fine handmade Amalfi paper with deckled edges
Frame: dark brown with gold fillet, handmade, with glass
Do you have any questions about our works?
How an Amalfi art print is made, what the frame is like, what museum glass is, how long shipping takes, and how returns work: we’ve gathered all the answers on a single page.