A Japanese lacquer box with a reverse-glass painting of a Dutchman
The oblong box black-lacquered, with glass lid painted with a Dutchman with his pipe, the inside and bottom nashiji-decorated,
L. 18.4 cm
Provenance: Private collection, Japan
Part of the Japan collection.
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Large panoramic painting of the bay of Nagasaki, painted after photographs taken by Pierre Rossier (Swiss 1829-c. 1886), in 1860 (circa 1860)
unknown Japanese artist (19th century)
A portrait painting of Takeaki Enomoto (1836-1908)
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A rare Japanese Nagasaki school scroll painting, Kakemono, attributed to Ishizaki Yũshi (1768-1846)
Strange-looking Westerners and their odd garments were a favoured subject in Japanese art, on ceramics, in paintings, prints and netsuke. The Japanese word for prostitute is ‘keisei’, and possibly the Dutch living on Deshima corrupted that Japanese word to ‘keesje’, for prostitute, and ‘kezen’, for making love, as depicted in the Japanese shunga, or ‘spring pictures.’ For a scroll of shunga, erotic pictures of Dutchmen and Japanese women engaged in sex at the Dutch trading post of Deshima, see Zebregs&Röell, Kawahara Keiga studio paintings, Maastricht, June 2020, pg 102-111.