Japan – Jean-Louis Durant after Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, 1679

17TH-CENTURY JAPAN WITH ROUTE OF THE DUTCH MISSION TO EDO 

“Carte des Isles du Iapon esquelles est remarqué la Route tant par Mer que par Terre que tiennent les Hollandois pour se transporter de la Ville de Nangasaqui a Iedo demeure du Roy de ces mesmes Isles.” [Map of the islands of Japan, on which is marked the route — both by sea and by land — that the Dutch follow to travel from the city of Nagasaki to Edo, the residence of the sovereign of these same islands.] Copper engraving, composed of two sheets, executed by Jean-Louis Durant after a design by Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, published in Paris in 1679 as part of Tavernier’s “Recueil de plusieurs relations et traitez singuliers et curieux”. Later coloured by hand. Size: (platemark) ca. 52 × 77 cm.

This large map depicts Japan in a form that still departs markedly from the actual coastlines and proportions. The principal islands of Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku are recognisable, but their relative positions, scale and contours are inaccurate. This applies above all to the north and east of Honshu and to the relationship between Japan, Korea and the surrounding islands. In the west a portion of Korea is also shown, with the “Mer de Coreer”.

The cartography still stands in the tradition of 16th- and 17th-century European maps of Japan, which drew on Portuguese, Jesuit, Chinese, Korean and Japanese sources of information. The first relatively accurate printed European map of Japan was that of Abraham Ortelius of 1595; only in the 18th and 19th centuries did maps appear that were more firmly based on Japanese sources and more precise observations.

What is remarkable about Tavernier’s map, however, is not only the shape of Japan but above all its content. The map is, as it were, at once a map, a travel itinerary and a sheet of commentary. Cities, provinces, mountains, islands and mining districts are indicated, but in addition numerous noteworthy annotations have been added. At Okazaki, for instance, it is recorded that the most beautiful women in the country were said to live there. By Lake Biwa it is stated that much salmon may be caught there. Mount Fuji is described as a mountain that is always covered with snow. Places are also named where gold or silver was said to be mined, and there is even an island recorded “to which one sends the youth who will turn their hand to nothing, and where they are made to labour by force until their close relatives come to fetch them away again.”

Cartographically and historically, it is above all the indicated route of the Dutch that is significant. From 1641 the Dutch were no longer permitted to reside freely in Japan, but were confined to Dejima, the artificial islet in the bay of Nagasaki. For more than two centuries that island formed virtually the only official European gateway to Japan. The merchants of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) were kept under strict supervision by the Japanese authorities, yet retained an exceptional position within the closed Japan of the sakoku period (1636–1859).

The route on this map refers to the Dutch missions to Edo. The Dutch opperhoofden (chief factors) of the VOC trading post were obliged to travel each year to Edo (present-day Tokyo) to pay homage to the shogun. That journey ran from Nagasaki via Kyushu, by sea and then overland, passing among other ways along the great Tōkaidō route between Kyoto/Osaka and Edo. For the Dutch this was a rare opportunity to see the interior of Japan; for the Japanese authorities it was at the same time a ritual of submission, control and diplomacy.

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605–1689) was a French traveller and gem merchant from a family of cartographers and engravers. He undertook six great voyages to Persia, India and Southeast Asia and acquired both renown and fortune through the trade in precious stones. His most famous transaction was the sale of the so-called “Tavernier Blue” to Louis XIV, the diamond that would later become known as the Hope Diamond. After his travels he published his “Six Voyages” in 1676 and, in 1679, the supplementary “Recueil de plusieurs relations”, in which this map of Japan was included.

Tavernier himself never visited Japan. His account was based on information from merchants and travellers, probably in part from Dutch circles. This explains the hybrid character of the map: partly geographical, partly ethnographic, partly anecdotal. For a European public it offered a glimpse of a country that in the 17th century was scarcely accessible. Following the suppression of Christianity and the restriction of foreign contacts, Japan had become a closed realm — but for that very reason all the more fascinating to European readers.

This (rare) map appeared in the first edition of “Recueil de plusieurs relations”. That work contained, among other things, a “Relation du Japon”, observations on the East India trade, a description of Tonkin and a section on the conduct of the Dutch in Asia. In later editions and translations the map was replaced by a smaller version; it is precisely this large format that belongs to the original publication.

Price: Euro 2,650 (incl. frame)