CHINESE-JAPANESE RELATIONS.

Manuscript on paper, manuscript title label on upper cover: “Nankin sen hyōchaku ikken An’ei 9” 南京船漂着一件 [“Concerning a Chinese Shipwreck Incident, May 1780”].

Two double-page & one single-page hand-drawn illus. & one manuscript map. 28 folding leaves. 8vo (269 x 193 mm.), orig. patterned wrappers, new stitching. Japan: mid- to late Edo period.

In the 18th century, under the policy of sakoku (isolationism), the Japanese state permitted Chinese traders to trade only through the port of Nagasaki, where they could be closely surveilled. This is a rare manuscript account of the Chinese ship Yuanshun 元順, bound for Nagasaki, that went adrift for five months and finally ran aground in today’s Chiba Prefecture in May 1780; our volume contains nicely rendered illustrations of the crippled ship and a map of the surrounding area. This is an intriguing and seemingly unstudied narrative of Japanese-Chinese relations during Japan’s 200-plus years of isolation.

Captained by Shen Jingzhan, the Yuanshun departed Shanghai but lost its bearings and drifted far off course for around 150 days. Our manuscript is a detailed chronicle of the local Japanese villagers and officials who rescued 78 sailors and provided them with food and shelter until a Japanese ship could ferry them to their original destination, Nagasaki.

An artist and merchant named Fang Xiyuan 方西園 (or Fang Ji, 1736-?) was the vice-captain of the Yuanshun. A master of ink paintings of the natural world, he had made several visits to Japan before this fateful voyage and spoke Japanese. He served as the intermediary between the Chinese and Japanese after the shipwreck. While on board the ship to Nagasaki, he saw Mount Fuji for the first time and made a painting of it, along with other unfamiliar sights in Japan that he witnessed. The renowned artist Tani Bunchō (1763-1841) created a series of works influenced by Fang’s sketches and drawings.

Our manuscript contains copies of official letters generated at the time by the local magistrate communicating with central authorities, with lists of crewmembers’ names and ages, name of the ship’s owner, villages that fed them, etc. The 17th leaf has two pages of text taken from a shinpai 信牌, the official permit for conducting trade with Japan. We also learn that the ship was carrying a large amount of sugar, materia medica, opium, rhinoceros horns, etc.

The hand-drawn illustrations, one single-page and one double-page, nicely heightened with color, show the poor state of the Yuanshun when it ran aground. The single-page drawing provides a closer look at the ship’s damage with an informative caption. Toward the end, the manuscript map lists the villages involved in the rescue. The Chinese ship appears at the top of the map, headed for the coast.

Some worming, mostly located in the gutter and occasionally touching the text; otherwise in very good condition. Ownership stamp of Kutsuki Bunko 朽木文庫 to recto of first leaf; this collection was formed by important bibliophile Kutsuki Hirotsuna 朽木泰綱.

Price: $6,500.00

Item ID: 11553