Dejima – ca. 1890

The Dutch Factory at Dejima. Colour lithograph, made around 1890. Size 14.5 × 22.5 cm.

In 1641, the Tokugawa shogunate transferred the Dutch trading factory from Hirado to the artificial island of Dejima (築島) in Nagasaki Bay. This made the Dutch the only Europeans still permitted to trade with Japan during the era of national seclusion, known as Sakoku (鎖国).

Through Dejima, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) supplied Japan with spices, sugar, textiles, and Western knowledge, while Japan exported copper, porcelain, and lacquerware in return. Trade was strictly regulated: the Dutch were not allowed to leave the island, Japanese could enter only under limited circumstances, and the annual court journey to Edo (Tokyo) was the merchants’ principal diplomatic duty.

After the VOC’s bankruptcy in 1799, the Dutch state took over the factory, which continued to operate in the nineteenth century under the supervision of the Netherlands Trading Society (NHM). Despite their isolation, the Dutch played a crucial role in the transmission of Western science, medicine, and technology.

In 1853, the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry’s “Black Ships” brought Japan’s isolation to an end. Six years later, in 1859, Nagasaki was officially opened to foreign trade. The Dutch left Dejima and settled on the opposite shore of the harbor. Dejima lost its function as an exclusive trading post and was gradually opened to Japanese merchants and various foreign firms (including British, German, and American trading houses). In the years that followed, land reclamation in Nagasaki Bay caused Dejima to be literally absorbed into the city, and by about 1904 it was no longer an island but part of the mainland—surrounded by warehouses, offices, and later modern port facilities.

When Japan opened to foreign trade after more than two centuries of isolation, the country made a profound impression on Westerners. For centuries it had seemed almost inaccessible. After the Meiji Restoration (1867), Japan modernized rapidly and opened itself to diplomacy, industry, and the art trade. Western travelers, diplomats, and artists visited the country and brought Japanese objects, prints, and ceramics back to Europe.

In the decades that followed, the West experienced a veritable craze for Japan, known as Japonisme. During this period, lithographs, albums, and panoramas depicting “old Japan” — including Dejima — became popular as nostalgic or exotic images of a world that was vanishing under modernization. This depiction of Dejima was created in that spirit: the island is portrayed as a symbol of the earliest European presence in Japan, complete with VOC flags, ships, and 18th-century houses.

Price: SOLD