A Japanese colour woodblock print, Nagasaki-e, titled 'oranda nyonin zu' or 'Dutch woman walking with a child'

No publisher mentioned, circa 1817
H. 36.2 x W. 16 cm
The Dutch woman is Titia Bergsma, Opperhoofd Jan Cock Blomhof’s wife, walking with her young son Johannes. In mid-August 1817 Jan Cock Blomhoff arrived in Japan, together with his wife, son and the Dutch wetnurse Petronella, to take over as Opperhoofd the management of the Dutch settlement on Deshima island from Hendrik Doeff. However, foreign women were not allowed into Japan under the sakoku policy of total isolation proclaimed by the shogunate. So the Dutch women and the child had to leave the country on the same ship on which they had arrived four months earlier. These four months were long enough for the painter Kawahara Keiga and publishers of prints in Nagasaki to make many illustrations of the first red hair, blue eye, and barbaric females to be seen in Japan.