HAYASHI, Shihei 林子平.

Hand-colored woodblock print [generally known as Oranda sen zusetsu 阿蘭陀船図説], depicting a “Schellach-type” Dutch trading ship.

1782. Print (830 x 585 mm.), mounted on a hanging scroll (1320 x 620 mm.), with wooden roller & cord for hanging. [Nagasaki: Toshimaya 豊嶋屋], 1782.

This striking print, carefully and appropriately mounted on a hanging scroll, is an important and rare survival: it made possible the publication of Hayashi’s “epoch-making” (Donald Keene) Kaikoku heidan 海國兵談 [Military Defense of a Maritime Nation], which was privately issued beginning in 1787. This book, which caused a sensation, called for stronger military forces and a maritime defense capability to enable the island nation to repel aggressive encroaching actions by Western nations, particularly the Russians and the Chinese. Only with armed warships and naval batteries along every part of the coastline, argued Hayashi, could Japan be safe from foreign interference and attacks.

Hayashi created the original drawing for this fine print in order to raise funds (much like today’s crowdfunding) and awareness of his planned Kaikoku heidan. The image of the Dutch ship was made to shock the Japanese public: it shows a massive “Schellach-type” vessel, bristling with cannons, numerous busy sailors and officers, and colorful flags, including one of the “VOC,” signifying it is one of the Dutch East India Company’s ships, which regularly visited Dejima in Nagasaki for trade. Japan had nothing like this ship in size or weaponry. The print is made from one woodblock and was then heightened by hand in colors, principally red, yellow, brown, beige, and black.

Hayashi (1738-93) was a Japanese scholar and a specialist in military affairs. In 1777, he travelled to Nagasaki, where he was greatly impressed by the size and strength of the Dutch ships. While there, he also learned of Russian intentions to advance south from Siberia into Asia. This prompted him to go to the northernmost island of Hokkaido to study the situation.

As a result of his journeys, Hayashi became alarmed at the weakness of Japan’s coastal defenses and ignorance of the outside world. He began to plan the publication of a large work to inform the shogunate, bakufu, and general population of his concerns. He needed money to publish the book and issued our print as a method of raising funds and awareness amongst his friends and acquaintances. In 1787, Hayashi started to issue, in a series of 16 volumes, his famous and controversial Kaikoku heidan, which recommended stronger military forces and a maritime defense capability. Hayashi had money problems, and it took until 1791 to publish all the volumes (only 38 sets were produced). His book is a remarkable example of a study on modern strategy, introducing the military sciences of the West to Japan. Hayashi describes the powerful weaponry of the Western powers and openly criticizes the shogunate for its ignorance of the rest of the world and reliance upon an isolationist policy while neglecting maritime defenses.

Kaikoku heidan caused a sensation and was banned by the government in 1792 on the grounds that national security matters were being discussed without official consent. Almost all copies and the woodblocks were confiscated and destroyed. Hayashi was placed under house arrest in 1792 and died the following year. In his last years, he used the pen name Rokumusai (六無斎), meaning “Six Losses,” enumerated as: “no parents, no wife, no children, no woodblocks, no money, and no desire to die.”

In the fifth chapter, “Pictorial Arts,” of his Jan Compagnie in Japan, 1600-1850 (Nijhoff: 1950), Charles R. Boxer discusses Nagasaki-e 長崎絵 (color prints made from woodblocks and published in Nagasaki) in general and our print in particular. Nagasaki-e “deal with subjects connected with the port of Nagasaki in general, and with Hollanders or Chinese who frequented it in particular” (p. 69). The first dated Nagasaki-e was issued by the publishing house Toshimaya, founded by Ohata Bunjiemon 大畠文治右衞門. Our print is part of a series of three (with two variants) named by Boxer as “Schellach” prints, all published by Toshimaya. These depict Dutch Indiamen ships of the “Schellach type.”

1. The earliest, ca. 1770-79, depicts Amsterdam harbor with two Dutch Indiamen ships flying VOC flags. Hayashi was not involved in this print.

2a. The second, variant A — our example — was created by Hayashi. It is dated by Boxer as ca. 1782 (Tenmei 2, or 1782, is printed at the end of the description) and depicts an 18th-century Dutch East India ship with the name SCHLLAAK on the stern. It has no title nor heading, but the upper half of the print is occupied by a long printed inscription describing Holland and its inhabitants and giving details of Dutch commercial relations with Nagasaki. Boxer describes our print as “exceedingly rare” (p. 82) and gives a full translation of the inscription in his Appendix, pp. 177-79.

2b. The third is variant B of 2, probably of the same year or a bit earlier, but lacks the inscription at the top. In its place is the title Oranda sen no Zu.

3. This is dated 1790 and is much like 2a but longer and narrower and with other differences, including a printed title and a publication date of Kansei 2. It has the title Oranda sen zusetsu.

In fine condition, preserved in an old wooden box.

❧ See also Boxer’s “Rin Shihei and His Picture of a Dutch East-India Ship, 1782” in Transactions of the Asiatic Society (Tokyo: 1932), pp. 45-66. Donald Keene, The Japanese Discovery of Europe (Routledge: 1952), pp. 47-56.