perry black ships (10 resultados)

Black and white wood block print on three joined sheets, 36.3 x 92.7cm. Some small holes professionally repaired with washi, a little soiling and some light staining in one section near the lower margin. This rare and visually arresting kawaraban records the second arrival of Commodore Perry and his fleet in 1854, when negotiations with the Tokugawa bakufu culminated in the Convention of Kanagawa. Produced for rapid circulation, the sheet brings together cartography, reportage and imaginative illustration to convey unfolding events to a broad Edo readership. The wide-format print is arranged in three panels. The right panel lists the feudal lords charged with coastal defence, identifying their assigned positions and displaying their family crests. It presents a striking impression of the scale of mobilisation, claiming that over 580,000 troops were assembled to protect Edo. The emphasis on names, domains and heraldry underscores the bakufu?s attempt to project order and preparedness in the face of foreign pressure. The central panel depicts an American landing party parading before a steam-powered warship rendered with careful attention to its rigging. The procession is led by two sailors playing musical instruments, followed by a standard-bearer carrying a striped flag with a single star, and others armed with bayonets. Several men raise military insignia, while the commanding officer, almost certainly intended to represent Commodore Matthew Perry, advances beneath a parasol borne by an attendant. All figures wear boots, a detail that would have marked them as distinctly foreign, yet their uniforms, especially those of the officers, are imaginatively interpreted and bear a closer resemblance to Chinese official dress than to contemporary Western naval attire. Such visual hybridity reveals both the novelty of the encounter and the limits of first-hand knowledge available to the artist. The left panel provides a pictorial map of Edo Bay, showing five American vessels entering the harbour. Defensive positions are clearly marked, with the names, ranks and crests of the responsible lords carefully indicated. The combination of map, military tableau and administrative listing transforms the kawaraban into both a news-sheet and a visual document of political theatre, reflecting contemporary anxieties and the dramatic reshaping of Japan?s foreign relations on the eve of the treaty era.

Condición: very good. np nd (mid 19th century). 18x24cm woodcut. A bit nibbled in the right margin, very good. A mysterious little kawaraban that has so far defied interpretation thanks to that damn cursive script. It all seems to relate to one event and since there are cannons, clan banners, a steam ship, and a person very much like the usual portraits of American marines I claim it's Perry's visit. How that includes what look like chopsticks, a tatami and a bonsai . ? I guess they make characteristic Japanese gifts but that doesn't explain some other things here.

Condición: very good. n.p. [1854]. 23x31cm woodcut. Folded; rather good. This lesson in the American language might be useless but when has that been an impediment to success? Those three figures are Americans having fun and that's a list of Japanese words or phrases and phonetic transcriptions from American. One ('child') is not too far off. Since the translator signs himself as 'foolish' was it ever meant to be taken seriously? I'm sure the artist's seal, something rarely, perhaps never, seen on a kawaraban is also a joke but it's too subtle for me. In one piece I found on this print the writer found it necessary to blur the last two words but the less prudish Tokyo Museum, thank goodness, transcribed them all. So you get a good idea of what the children and vulgar of Edo were chanting or shouting at each other. No American would have understood what they were saying but they knew what they meant. These illicit illustrated news sheets - kawaraban - for the streets were produced by the million for a couple of hundred years so of course few survive. They were produced for anything more interesting than the drop of a hat and the arrival of the Black Ships, the American squadron commanded by Perry, in 1853 and 54, eclipsed any and all tiresome earthquakes, fires, plagues, famines, murders and scandals. For most Japanese this was the same as a squadron of alien space ships arriving on earth now. These prints are the kurofune (black ship) kawaraban.

Condición: very good. n.p. n.d. [1853?]. Woodcut 40x62cm on two joined sheets. A few small holes, rather good. After Perry's MacArthur-Terminator like threat to return after his first visit in 1853 the defence of Japan became paramount and these defence or peace (taihei) prints blossomed. With the number of variations on a theme produced, the prints sellers must have been flat out keeping the populace up to date with the defences around what is now Tokyo Bay. This one is the most cluttered - which is a good thing - I've seen, with ships, bristling fortifications, and bits of landscape everywhere. These illicit illustrated news sheets - kawaraban - for the streets were produced by the million for a couple of hundred years so of course few survive. They were produced for anything more interesting than the drop of a hat and the arrival of the Black Ships, the American ships commanded by Perry in 1853, and the return of the beefed up squadron in 1854 to close the deal, eclipsed any and all tiresome earthquakes, fires, plagues, famines, murders and scandals. For most Japanese this was the same as a squadron of alien space ships arriving on earth now. These prints are the kurofune (black ship) kawaraban.

Condición: very good. n.p. 1853-55. Two ink and colour drawings 27x38cm. Small hole in the second drawing. Despite all the detail I'm still uncertain about where these foreigners came from. I can tell you their names, ages and give a pretty good physical description of the woman. I can't tell the goat's age but we are given it's size. Since it's February 1855 at Shimoda I'd say they are Russian. The surprise for me is that women and children were included in the Putiatin mission. That American ship on the left in the other drawing is not damaged, it's shrouded in smoke.

Condición: very good. n.p. n.d. [1854]. 18x12cm publisher's wrapper, most of the label missing; 20 double leaves; illustrated pretty much throughout, double page colour map at the beginning. Some insignificant worming at the beginning, signs of use but quite good. One of two volumes with this title. As far as I can figure out this is mostly a compilation of separately issued prints or kawaraban - illicit news sheets - about the arrival of Perry and the black ships. Afficianados will recognise some of those pictures from other kawaraban. Much of this is satirical or parody which makes it unintelligible for me. I can tell you that the trio of celebrating Americans accompanies a list of mock American vocabulary. And that ancient looking black man is the youngest person on that page - 35 years old the caption tells us.

Condición: very good. n.p. [1854]. 45x62cm colour woodcut on two joined sheets. A largish hole towards the top right, bottom edge stained and a bit damaged, some unimportant holes elsewhere. Repaired with backing some time ago, the damage at the bottom and small worm holes have happened since. It would be wrong to call this a poor cousin of the similar kawaraban, Kairiku Okatame Onbasho Tsuke, the largest and most sumptuous I've yet seen. This is still an aristocrat among kawaraban. It is also a four in one print: details of the clans defending Tokyo bay at the top, the Americn procession in the middle, close ups of two of Perry's black ships bottom left, and a map of the whole situation bottom right. These illicit illustrated news sheets - kawaraban - for the streets were produced by the million for a couple of hundred years so of course few survive. They were produced for anything more interesting than the drop of a hat and the arrival of the Black Ships, the American squadron commanded by Perry, in 1853 and 54, eclipsed any and all tiresome earthquakes, fires, plagues, famines, murders and scandals. For most Japanese this was the same as a squadron of alien space ships arriving on earth now. These prints are the kurofune (black ship) kawaraban.

None. Condición: None. 1 handscroll.  Image size 27x306,1cm; Overall size 31,2x417,6 cm.  Monochrome hand painted scroll. Moderate foxing. Restored and mounted on silk brocade in the 20th century. Comes with a wooden custommade box.  Text in Japanese. A superb example of late-Bakumatsu visual intelligence production, combining coastal cartography, technical ship schematics, and ethnographic observation into a single continuous narrative scroll devoted to Commodore Perry's 1853 landing at Uraga. The opening section maps the coastline of Uraga Bay, with named sites such as Kurihama (???), Kannonzaki (???), Nishi-Uraga (???) and nearby temples and guard stations, situating the American squadron spatially within the defensive geography of Sagami Province. Steam paddle-wheel frigates are depicted at anchor, while Japanese guard boats and landing stages are carefully plotted, revealing the bakufu's concern with surveillance, approach routes, and crowd control. This is followed by highly analytical technical plates of the American ships: the paddle wheel system, hull construction, anchors, guns, funnels, rigging, drums, trumpets, signal equipment, and detailed diagrams of naval uniforms, hats, epaulettes, and insignia. Notably, the soldiers themselves are not hand-coloured; instead, the intended colours of their uniforms are carefully written out beside the figures, as if providing a working guide for a copyist or woodblock printer who would later execute the images in colour. Each object is isolated, labelled, and measured, transforming the foreign fleet into a catalogue of reproducible components rather than a distant spectacle. The final sections record the ceremonial procession of the American landing party at Kurihama on 14th day of the 6th month of Kaei 6 (?????????, 9 July 1853). Lines of sailors armed with rifles and sabres advance under the Stars and Stripes, while officers are individually identified by rank and dress. The accompanying annotations state that "more than three thousand Japanese" were mobilised, with contingents from the domains of Aizu, Oshi, Hikone, and Kawagoe, and that Uraga magistrates Toda Izunokami Ujiyoshi (???????) and Ido Iwaminokami Hiromichi (???????) formally received the American party. Rather than merely illustrating an event, the scroll operates as an epistemic device: a systematic attempt to absorb the unprecedented shock of the Black Ships into an ordered visual archive. Geography, technology, costume, weaponry, protocol, and crowd movement are rendered with bureaucratic precision, making this work not a souvenir of Perry's arrival, but a working document of state knowledge at the very moment when the Tokugawa order was beginning to unravel. An ink inscription on the scroll reads ???????? ?? (Hodono henshuku-ch? j?-ge, Wada), identifying the owner or copyist as Wada, resident of the Henshuku quarter in Hodono, a district of Kubota (present-day Akita). The term henshuku-ch? refers to a quarter designated for temporary or service accommodation of officials and retainers, indicating that the scroll circulated within a provincial administrative environment rather than solely in Edo. This provenance strongly suggests that the handscroll functioned as a working document within a domainal bureaucratic or military context, used to disseminate concrete visual intelligence about the American fleet to regional authorities in northern Japan.

Condición: very good. n.p. (1854). 35x93cm colour woodcut on two joined sheets. A couple of small holes; a nice copy. Four in one: list of defences on the right; American procession and a close up of a black ship in the middle; and American ships and defence in the harbour on the left. This must be among the most deluxe kawaraban ever produced: two large sheets and colour. Usually a print this size, not that I'd seen one this long, would be on three or four joined sheets. So even cheap illicit news sheets have a hierarchy. This strengthens my suspicion that there was already a market of collectors as well as the no longer slack-jawed peasantry. There is an almost as deluxe untitled print with the same elements but not the same drawings and layout. There are other kawaraban with this title and a couple closely resemble this in parts. One has the first few musicians in the American procession but not the rest and not the majestic figure of, I presume, his royal highness Adams. The Sanada Treasures Museum has a copy of this and Brown University has a copy but not coloured. That's all I found. These illicit illustrated news sheets - kawaraban - for the streets were produced by the million for a couple of hundred years so of course few survive. They were produced for anything more interesting than the drop of a hat and the arrival of the Black Ships, the American squadron commanded by Perry, in 1853 and 54 eclipsed any and all tiresome earthquakes, fires, plagues, famines, murders and scandals. For most Japanese this was the same as a squadron of alien space ships arriving on earth now. These prints are the kurofune (black ship) kawaraban.

Condición: very good. n.p. n.d. [1853-54]. 24x34cm colour woodcut. Old folds and some rubbing round the edges; a couple of tiny pinholes; rather good with pleasing colour. Fabulous, in both senses of the word, rare, and satisfyingly baffling. Even with some help from the accompanying poetry this print defies comprehension. It can only be explained with surmises. Starting with the title which can translate as Foreign ship returning home, who can explain why the ship is sailing towards the astounding fish that is Japan and why the look out is pointing that way? A reasonable guess is that artist couldn't find a better old ship print to work from, the picture works better this way, and the rest is unimportant detail. Why the important men are vomiting over the side we will soon learn.That fish - fugu - pufferfish - exists by itself in another print, Fugu no Zu, a surimono like print that is known by the copy in the Tokyo Metropolitan Library in one of the volumes compiled by Mokitsu Hachiya. Mokitsu was a Tayasu Tokugawa official and writer. Some of the same text appears on both. Which print came first seems unknown. The fugu on its own seems likely but, while very similar, our fish is much more carefully detailed, usually a sign of the original. What is certain is that both prints appeared between Perry's first visit in July 1853 and his return in February 1854.The first line of text on the fugu's back reads Hachiman Daibosatsu - Hachiman Great Bodhisattva. By this time Hachiman had evolved from being a god for farmers and fishers to being a god for samurai. That fugu is a floating armory: weapons, armour and regalia, including the crests of three clans defending japan on Odaiba, the artificial island near Shinagawa. Just the sight of that poisonous puffer has sickened the Americans and sent them rushing home, backwards, for a home cooked meal. I think that's what some of the text suggests.As far as the text on both prints goes I would have a better chance of choreographing a dance from it than reading it. I suspect the modern Japanese reader is also stumped by the poetic allusions and puns: the few notes I have found either miss the point or don't attempt to explain it. It is satirical but is it satirising only the Americans fleeing Japan as all unwelcome foreigners before them? Is it also satirising Japan's defenders, the massed clans around Tokyo harbour? Would they be pleased to be a fugu? Is this why the print is so decidedly anonymous?This has been called a kawaraban which I think breaches the spirit of what a kawaraban is: a cheap illicit news sheet for sale on the streets. I'm inclined to call it a surimono but I won't make a fuss about it. I've traced three copies: Tokyo university in a collection of satirical prints before and after meiji - they date it to 1864 but that must be the date of the collection, not this print; Stanford copy in an album of drawings and prints relating to the black ships and foreigners; and a copy in the Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde, Leiden.