A Japanese scroll painting depicting Nagasaki Bay by Tamaki Kabutei (1807-1879)

Late Edo/early Meiji period, circa 1870, antedated 1715

Painting on silk, H. 38.5 x W. 75.7 cm

For generations, the Tamaki family members were writers for Tosen Kakejuku-cho, a task responsible for administrating business affairs related to Chinese trade ships entering and leaving Nagasaki harbour. Tamaki Kabutei, whose common name was Kanpei, was especially good at painting in oil in the European style. He became an art teacher at the Nagasaki Normal School in the early Meiji period after the opening of Japan to the outside world. The present painting, one of only two by Kanpei known outside Japan, was painted in 1870 and possibly was in the collection of British historian on Portuguese and Dutch colonialism, Charles Ralph Boxer (1904-2000).