Histoire

1708 · 219243 — 東京. Tokyo.: 須原屋茂兵衛. Suwaraya Mohei. Hoei 5 1708. Black and white woodblock map with yellow outlining in original hand colour 55.8 x 127cm map; 59.5 x 131cm sheet folding into the original Japanese wrappers chipped and rather worn 26.4 x 17.4cm the map with old repairs laid down on washi rather browned and wormed at the folds but with no serious loss the sheet age-toned and a little dusty but overall in remarkably good condition. Preserved in a modern blue linen Japanese case with toggle-closures. A famous woodblock-printed Japanese map of the world by renowned Edo Period map-maker Ishikawa Tomonobu who is also known as Ishikawa Ryūsen. This is a revised version of an earlier map produced by Ishikawa in 1688. <br> <br>The map appears to draw on Chinese and Portuguese geographical knowledge. The Chinese production of world maps had been transformed by the influence of the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci who collaborated with Chinese cartographers to produce a 1584 map of the world. In Japan the production of maps of "the myriad countries" or "the international countries" bankoku had been inspired by contact with Portuguese missionaries and with the Dutch in the 16th century. <br> <br>Ishikawa's map broadly resembles the Ricci map in being placed in an oval frame with the Pacific and thus also China and Japan at the centre. The content though is different. While Ricci's map is oriented to the north Ishikawa's is oriented to the east with America at the top of the page and the sketchy outlines of Europe including 'Ikiresu' England and a large and clearly marked Holland and Africa 'Kafuri' at the bottom. This orientation apparently influenced by the first world map in Japan "Bankoku Sōzu" 万国総図 which was published in 1645. Interestingly although Ishikawa had earlier produced a quite detailed and fairly accurate map of Japan the Japan shown on this world map is a rather loosely outlined collection of islands in which for example Ryūkyū the Ryukyu Kingdom now Okinawa and Hachijōjima appear much larger than they are in reality. Japan is also unusually oriented making it appear as though Ezo now Hokkaido is in the middle of the Pacific. It seems that the cartographer's interest here was less in outlining Japan in detail than in broadly setting out the country's place in relation to the land masses to the east and west. <br> <br>Like other Japanese world maps of the Edo period and like Ricci's map Ishikawa's image of the world includes imagined countries such as 'The Land of Giants". The continuing centrality of China in Japanese thought is indicated by the fact that Ishikawa's map contains a very clearly marked depiction of the Great Wall and that the map is decorated at the top with depictions of a Japanese and a Chinese sailing ship. The text at the bottom gives estimated distances between Hizen Province where the port of Nagasaki provided Japan's main official outlet to the world in this age of seclusion and various places in China and between Hizen and the Ryūkyū Kingdom. It also gives the estimated distance from Korea to Tsushima Island which served as Japan's gateway for diplomatic and trade relations with Korea. <br> <br>Engelbert Kaempfer a German physician and explorer brought back the 1688 edition of this map printing to Europe after his stay in Japan between 1690 and 1692. The map was introduced to European audiences in the 17th century and impacted on later European cartographic endeavours. <br> <br>Copies of this rare and historically significant map are held only in a handful of major collections: the British Library National Diet Library NDL of Japan the Staatsbibliothek of Berlin University of California Berkeley's Japanese Historic Maps Collection and the University of British Columbia. . 須原屋茂兵衛. [Suwaraya Mohei]. unknown